The New Creation Has Come (And It Changes Everything)

0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): Hey, it’s almost a new year, but what does it mean to be a new creature or a new creation? I’m going to lay it out for you piece by piece in the next More Faith, More Life podcast. You were made for more than the status quo.

0:00:14 – (Steve Gray): I’m Pastor Steve Gray, and this is the More Faith, More Life podcast. This podcast is for Christians with an ambitious heart who want to be more for their family, do more with their career, and see more of God’s promises in their life. I’ve spent many years as a worship artist, minister, nonprofit leader, bold truth speaker, and most importantly, father and spouse. When I was in my early 40s.

0:00:38 – (Steve Gray): I was craving more.

0:00:39 – (Steve Gray): More from God and more from life. I’d done everything I was supposed to do. My life was good, but it wasn’t good enough. So I spent the following years diving into the word of God and searching for the biblical principles that that would bring me closer to God and help my purpose and life flourish. That’s what I want to share with you. In every episode, you’ll get practical tools based on real life experiences that you can put into action to redefine your faith and ultimately your life.

0:01:11 – (Steve Gray): So if you’re ready to do more, subscribe to More Faith, More Life, and hear an unfiltered biblical truth every week. It’s time to be an experience more.

0:01:22 – (Steve Gray): Hello, everyone. Welcome to another More Faith, More Life podcast. Your voice of revival. And got Zion with me here. And Zion, it’s close to the new year now, and so we talk about new things that, you know, the new year and new. New Year’s resolutions are new, new, new. And so I went, that’s what we’re doing today. I like work, by the way. I like working with Zion. He doesn’t know where we’re going until he gets here.

0:01:46 – (Steve Gray): But maybe that’s because I don’t know where I’m going until we get here.

0:01:48 – (Zion): I mean, it’s my first time seeing this one.

0:01:50 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. So here we. It’s great because he gets to be an audience like you’re an audience hearing it for the first time. And I can see what questions would he have? Or what’s his reaction? Or his responses might be the same thing you would respond or say, you know, so kind of kind of cool in a way to do it that way as opposed to some, you know, have two people and both of them are. Both of them know everything. Sure.

0:02:13 – (Zion): Yeah.

0:02:13 – (Steve Gray): And this way I have somebody that knows nothing.

0:02:17 – (Zion): I’m like, what are we talking about today? He’s like, you’ll see. You’ll see.

0:02:19 – (Steve Gray): Okay. So anyway, 2nd Corinthians is a great 5, 17 is a great scripture for New Year. Therefore, if anyone. This is new international version, which is important if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone. The new is here. Now Niv is got a great slant, you know, New international version of the Bible. It’s a great slant. But however, all the other. You go down and see almost all the other translations, they none of them say the new creation. They say you’re a new creature, you know, or you’ve been created.

0:02:53 – (Steve Gray): It’s like if you’re in Christ, you’re a new creature. This says the new creation has come. That’s a whole lot different. Because now what has come, what makes you that new creature is so NIV hits it. They miss it sometimes, but they hit it right on this one of the context of what Paul meant when he said, if you’re in Christ, you’re a new creature. That’s true. But. But why? Or how and why and how does that work?

0:03:22 – (Steve Gray): So when I went and studied this, then you have to realize that a Jewish audience would. If you said you’re. He said the new creation has come or you’re a new creature, they are automatically going to think, oh, well, Genesis one, in the beginning, God created.

0:03:40 – (Zion): Yeah.

0:03:40 – (Steve Gray): So they begin to think, oh, to be a new creature or the new creation, God’s going to have to create something in me. God creates something as opposed to. I don’t know. I. I don’t know what people think. Like they repent of their sins, they turn over a new leaf. They try to be a better person. They believe that Jesus is Lord and he’s the Messiah, he’s the Christ or however they want to say it. And then what do they think happens after that? I don’t know.

0:04:07 – (Zion): Right.

0:04:07 – (Steve Gray): I don’t know. But it’s a create. It’s the creative power of God is to do something in you that, that transforms you. So there should be immediate change and continual change, continual creation. Because, you know, you notice God didn’t just create on one day. He created on all. Well, except six days. Yeah. So that it was ongoing creation. And that’s us. We’re process. Yeah, it’s us. He’s got, you know, we got to give him at least six days.

0:04:34 – (Steve Gray): Don’t get frustrated.

0:04:35 – (Zion): One day to rest too.

0:04:36 – (Steve Gray): Give him a day to give a day off. But anyway, so the old has come, the new is here. That’s not bad. But the Jewish audience would think Genesis 1, okay, God does it. So now the Greek, this. Since Paul, it was originally done in Greek that. And so he was very educated and he knew Greek, and a lot of people knew Greek. And so it’s the Greek language. So we have to go to the Greek, because the Bible, New Testament was translated into Greek first.

0:05:04 – (Steve Gray): So it’s important. Sometimes you can go overboard with it. You can get the point without going to the Greek sometimes. But this is a very important one because we all need to be new creations or a new creature. So the Greek actually gets. It is. It says. It means this. It says, so if anyone is in Christ, you become a new species. So if a scientist went out and they went in the ocean or whatever, and they do that. I saw one the other day where they found something they never knew existed. It was an ugly old thing that was kind of teeth like, whoa. But it was a new species that they never knew existed.

0:05:40 – (Steve Gray): And so that’s what it means. It means to have a creation event in you that causes you to become a new species, or if we don’t like that word, the new humanity that the world has never seen before. So when Jesus walked the earth, he already had that because he was born of the spirit already and the flesh. So he was a new kind of person. He was a person. He’s human, but he’s a new kind of human. That the Earth had never seen one like this before.

0:06:13 – (Zion): Yeah.

0:06:14 – (Steve Gray): And then when we get into him, then we’re supposed to have that creative power God creates in us through the spirit of God and our faith in Jesus and the spirit of God, and we become like him. A new species or a new human being, a new humanity like the Earth has never seen before. It’s just we’re. We’re not alone. We’ve got millions of people and millions and millions and millions since Jesus started.

0:06:39 – (Steve Gray): But anyway, it means you are now the new humanity. So when I put this together, though, I wanted to put it so the people that are younger than I am can get it immediately. Especially techie people will get it immediately. It’s like you have. God grants you a new operating system.

0:06:59 – (Zion): Nice. Okay, I like that.

0:07:01 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. A new operating system. And so you would not want to have. Why would you run the old one, your old one, slow? It crashes, unreliable. So it’s like your old life has been. You crash sometimes. It’s unreliable. You don’t know what you’re. Where am I going? What am I doing? I don’t understand things. You know, all that. And then God comes and gives you a new species. This new species has a brand new operating system.

0:07:26 – (Steve Gray): And it’s basically, you could say it’s the kingdom of God system, but a new operating system. But what has, when you study the Greek language and the implication that Paul does. What is Paul thinking? And especially if it was a Jewish audience, but even if it wasn’t, what was Paul thinking? What was he trying to say to us? Okay. And so what we don’t get in our modern-day theology that is so wonderful in this theology and you and I, I think on another podcast or Facebook or whatever live we’ve done, we’ve talked about the churches.

0:08:01 – (Steve Gray): So good about looking backwards. Yeah, to the cross, which is good, important, you know, all the things he did and believing by faith that what he did on the cross works for you today. Yeah, that’s really important. Right, but, and, and we’re pretty fair looking forward, Jesus is going to return. Or some people believe, you know, in the future is a rapture or catching away and others don’t believe it, but Jesus is going to come back and the resurrection of the dead.

0:08:26 – (Steve Gray): So we get our theology of a future in that. But what’s lacking is the now, yesterday, today and forever today is the, is our faith in today. And the reason I think that happens is we don’t know what’s even supposed to happen. We can say new creature, but what does that mean? New creation, what does that mean? So to put it into Paul’s perspective is so we have our past, we have our future. But what Paul is saying, yes, we have the future kingdom of God going to come to the earth, there’s going to be a new heaven, the new earth is going to meet together. Everything’s new. Right.

0:09:06 – (Steve Gray): So we believe in that. But what Paul is saying is by faith, when you become a new creation, this new creature, you’re really coming back in time type thing. The future is being created in you now the kingdom to come, the things of the kingdom, the attitude to the kingdom, the heartfelt ways, the things when the kingdoms come together and Jesus rules on the earth as the king. So the future has invaded, it invades your life.

0:09:38 – (Steve Gray): There’s a Holy Spirit invasion that God creates until we say in my new beginning, God created my future now. And so that’s important. And as you really want to stress this now, that if you’re a believer, you’re a true believer in Jesus, you know, the whole, whole thing, you know, you really believe this and you really believe and he’s the Messiah and you really believe he’s the Savior. Okay. And you’ve done everything right.

0:10:03 – (Steve Gray): You are as eternal right now as you’ll ever get. So, Zion, you will never become more eternal than you are right now.

0:10:13 – (Zion): Wow.

0:10:13 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. That’s. Now that’s a revelation that can change your thinking. If you’re a new creature, You’re. You’re a new creature. From eternity has now come. Now. The future has come to you. Now you’re going to be. Because we. We all know when you’re raised from the dead and you get it, you get your body back and all that, you know, we’re in eternity. The old saying, that doesn’t fit good theology. The old saying that they say, do you know you’re going to spend eternity in heaven? And the answer is no.

0:10:40 – (Zion): Right?

0:10:41 – (Steve Gray): Because we’re going to. It’s going to come. The eternity is going to be here on Earth. It’s a kingdom. It’s. It’s a kingdom on Earth. It’s. It’s a. It’s like the Garden of Eden is the whole Earth, you know, the original garden. And. But heaven comes to, you know, and they join together. A new heaven, new Earth. And I was going to say this later, but I’ll go ahead and say it now. Is. Notice how God operates when he’s doing this new stuff, because it’s going to be a new heaven, a new Earth, new you, new creature, new creation, new year.

0:11:13 – (Steve Gray): Right. But he does not destroy the old in order to create the new. That’s powerful.

0:11:21 – (Zion): Interesting.

0:11:22 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. Because we would think that he would have to abolish. Abolish something to do it, but he doesn’t. He. He takes the you who you are, and he does. And he brings the future and he makes your new creation. You’re a new species. You’re a new humanity. Why? Because eternity is you now. You’re eternal now. You’re walking the earth. You’re doing all your stuff. Now, that’s hard for people because our outward tent perishes. That’s what Paul called it, a tent. That was being a polite way, I guess, because they knew tents then.

0:11:54 – (Steve Gray): Right. So he said, the outward perishes, but the inward does not. So if your body lays down and dies, let’s just be honest, it happens. Right? But you are eternal already. You will never lose consciousness. You’ll never know, where am I? I’m floating through space or anything like that. You know, you keep going because you are eternal now, the way you’re thinking. But we are shackled to a body, so it’s a little different. It’s not as easy as it’s going to be.

0:12:30 – (Steve Gray): It’s still a battle and we still have some carnality to overcome and, you know, live for Jesus and all that stuff. But the future has invaded you now. You are as eternal as you’re going to be. So what? Oh, yeah. And we were saying. So he didn’t have to kill you to recreate you.

0:12:46 – (Zion): Right.

0:12:46 – (Steve Gray): He took you. And that’s why we say born a second time, born again. The rebirth is, you keep your old birth, but there’s a new birth comes and the future invades. Eternity invades now the kingdom of God invades all the great things. So your future of what you’re going to be is what you already are, except we have to deal with this flesh. Sure. And that’s a. That can be a battle too. So it’s not.

0:13:16 – (Zion): Does that tie into. It’s here and it’s coming.

0:13:19 – (Steve Gray): Say it again.

0:13:19 – (Zion): When you talk about the kingdom is here and.

0:13:23 – (Steve Gray): The phrase is the now and not yet. Right? Yeah, exactly. So it’s now, you’re eternal now, but it’s not yet here where heaven and earth have come together and the devil is destroyed and there’s no more sin, no more death, no more crying. You know, lion lays down with the lamb and all those great things that are said. So. So it’s. It’s already inside of you now. So now when we say live, you talk about living by faith.

0:13:52 – (Steve Gray): Most people are trying to believe something, a concept.

0:13:56 – (Zion): Right.

0:13:57 – (Steve Gray): You know, like they need more money. I’m going to believe that he’ll help me. Really hope he helps. Or, you know, you’re sick. Oh, I’m going to really believe in healing, you know, and that’s good because we want to apply our faith to the things we need and we want to see. But it changes everything. When you now apply your faith to the new creature system, the new creation system. Sure. Yeah. And that’s why NIV is important, because there. It’s the only one I really found that says, therefore if anyone in Christ, the new creation has come to you, as opposed to you’re a new creature. It’s all both. Right.

0:14:29 – (Zion): Right.

0:14:29 – (Steve Gray): But what actually took place that made you a new creature, the new creation has come into you early. It’s not here yet. It’s the not yet. But it is now because it is in you now. It’s just not everywhere now. Isn’t that fun? Isn’t that fun, though? And so. So my faith needs to trust in the new creation system. My new operating. We’ll say it that way. Put your faith in the new operating system. You got a software update and y this and so in the new operating system. Yeah, it’s true. We do think differently.

0:15:00 – (Steve Gray): We act. We do act differently. We treat our money differently. Because Jesus talked a lot about money, but he’s talking about new creation type thinking like. And we love differently, we react differently, we forgive. We don’t. You know, and he said forgive seven times and going, whoa, that’s a lot in one day. But. But it’s just, you operate differently now because you’re a new humanity. Eternity is in you and you want to take care of it and you want to respect it and you want to be thankful for it, and you want to. And so that’s why I like to say, put your faith in the new you.

0:15:37 – (Steve Gray): Well, not in you, but the new you that God has made you. That there’s an operating system that’s going on inside of you now. If you don’t recognize it and you don’t put faith into it and you don’t operate, you get a battle going on. Because just because you’re operating in the old one. Because Paul wrote, you know, the works of the flesh are plain and the. The fruit of the spirit is plain. Yeah. So you can have both going on. You have this battle of still wanting to be kind of lazy, carnal, fleshly selfish.

0:16:07 – (Steve Gray): That. And then you also. But eternity’s inside of you. Yeah. So now you have this conflict. That’s why you have so many unhappy, pointless Christians. Yeah. They have not switched over to the other one. They’re hanging on to the old one. Or maybe they’re just more. We’re more. Obviously, we’re more familiar with the old operating system than we are the new one. It’s like you get a new operating system and you can’t find anything. It’s like I switched from Windows to Mac one day. Sure, I had no idea.

0:16:36 – (Steve Gray): I didn’t know what to do, but it’s a great system. But it didn’t work for me for a while. I had to switch over. And it would have been terrible for me to say, forget it, because I really like Mac. I’m just going back to Windows and my old computer. Even that was slow. And so, you know, so we. So when what’s the Bible teach us? The old has gone. So we. The. The joy of this and the application of it is then you turn from the old, because it’s up to you to do it. It’s everything’s available.

0:17:06 – (Steve Gray): Eternity is in you. The new operating system, the kingdom of God, all those things are around you, which is where we believe the kingdom of God is here now. Yeah. But not fully, not yet. But it is here. And so what are we supposed to be doing, you know? Well, we need to turn from the old and turn to the new operating system. So the new operating system then teaches us, okay, you’re going to have to get out of self-love. Yeah. John the Baptist knew that. He says I’ve got to decrease because he was, he was the popular figure for, for when he first started out. He was very popular. People thought he was the Messiah or maybe Elijah come back from the dead, you know, and he, and he said, I am not it. I’m not it. And he realized, you know what?

0:17:51 – (Steve Gray): They’re going to keep boosting me. Which they did. Even after he was dead, his disciples still followed him. The dead, the dead, the dead John the Baptist. So he said, you know what I got to do? I’m going to have to decrease and I’m going to have to make him increase because I can’t have that position. And that’s what we need to say about ourselves. I can’t have that position. I can’t be the increase that I have to decrease in myself.

0:18:13 – (Steve Gray): My self-love. And now I need to increase in love. Loyalty, serving generosity, do things in his name, represent him well and represent the eternal kingdom that he’s gifted me with. I need to represent that now. So that’s my new system. And so we turn from the old system, we go to the new. So it’s, it’s more than just trying to be a better person because that’s hard too. If all you, if you sort of stay the same, you just try to be a better same.

0:18:43 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. And I think that’s what a lot of sermons are today. A lot of sermons are self-improvement. You need to be a better you. Yeah. A better same. Selfish person. Change less. Less selfish.

0:18:54 – (Zion): Right, right.

0:18:55 – (Steve Gray): But not changed. New, not new. Good, good point. Yeah. Not new. And that’s the whole idea. It’s new. It’s not made over. Yeah.

0:19:02 – (Zion): Right.

0:19:03 – (Steve Gray): But it is still you. He didn’t have to kill you to make you new.

0:19:06 – (Zion): Yeah, that’s so good. And, and yeah, it’s not self-medicating.

0:19:09 – (Steve Gray): No, none of that. Yeah. So it’s renovated. Yeah. So it’s turned from the old. And it doesn’t necessarily, it doesn’t necessarily mean old habits because like some people might watch TV too much and Maybe they watch the wrong things on tv. So now they’re going to try to say okay, I’m only going to watch good stuff now. Yeah, okay, I get it. That’s, that’s some turning from the old. But you’re still self-centered. You’re still watching it like this.

0:19:37 – (Steve Gray): You know, you have no, you have no God love going on. You have no God service trying to increase. Yeah. Morality and become a better you rather than a change new you. And that’s the weakness of our preaching today. We as we’ve said before here, we lower the standard so everybody can fit in rather than raise the standard. It says no, we, there’s something new. Yeah. So God recreates and takes you and it’s the power.

0:20:00 – (Steve Gray): And it’s the same power that raised Christ from the dead. It’s also the same power. Then he said let there be light.

0:20:06 – (Zion): Yeah.

0:20:07 – (Steve Gray): Bang. Light was created. He says let there be new, let there be a new species, let there be the future invade you now, become eternal now. So that is what Paul is trying to imply to us. But without our understanding the Greek language or understanding Jewish things at all. We don’t, they don’t teach, they don’t teach in seminary or Bible school hardly at all unless you studies. But it’s like the general people that are studying to be missionaries are going to have really unless they go to Israel are going to have no understanding of the roots of how you think through this that Paul being a Jew was putting into context of his Judaism and the new, the new creation.

0:20:51 – (Zion): Yeah.

0:20:52 – (Steve Gray): So anyway, that’s really good. Yeah. So that’s why we need to be born a second time, everybody. Because what does that mean to be born a second time? It means an invasion of your future which is real. It’s going to be real. But the invasion of the eternal future breaks forth in you now. And now we just need to apply it. Turn from the old system and try to do our best we can to live in the new system.

0:21:18 – (Steve Gray): And if we fail or falter, we have forgiveness. Yes, we have ways to take care of things but get back into the new which is wholehearted loyalty. Love God with all your heart. Put him first. All those things that self-love doesn’t want you to do, but God’s love does. The new system wants you to. I like to say it this God’s new system, God’s new creation system always wants to serve. God always says yes to God always wants to go. For God never is like the new system never says now don’t go Too far. Yeah. Don’t go overboard.

0:21:55 – (Zion): Right?

0:21:55 – (Steve Gray): Yeah.

0:21:56 – (Zion): Yeah.

0:21:56 – (Steve Gray): So most people afraid of going overboard get thrown overboard. They just never make it. They’re drowning in a sea of selfishness. Yeah. So anyway, that’s. As you think of the New Year, think of the new creature and the new creation. Think of new eternity. Eternity has come to you now. You’ll never be more eternal than you are right this minute. So be sure and check out https://stevegrayministries.com. Take a look at the books. Get to know us better. Also like, share, subscribe and tell your friends, because you just learned something they probably have never heard. Yeah. Would you agree?

0:22:31 – (Zion): Yeah.

0:22:35 – (Steve Gray): I mean, you know, you know, the new creation, you’ve been around, new creature, you’re a new creature, the oldest, you know. But this is the application and understanding of what’s really going on. And so that’s why I want you to keep listening every week and tell your friends, let’s let this grow. We never. Do you notice we mentioned this last week, in a week, a couple weeks ago, we never asked for money. I always forget.

0:22:57 – (Zion): That’s true.

0:22:57 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, I always forget.

0:22:58 – (Zion): I never put it in either. A lot of people throw it in and post edit.

0:23:02 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, I never do. This would be worth supporting, I think, for sure, simply because you just heard things that you’ve never heard.

0:23:09 – (Zion): And you’re starting off your new year with a huge advantage now, walking in with this revelation in 2026. I mean, the new year starts in two days tomorrow.

0:23:17 – (Steve Gray): You could go a whole year and never hear this. You can go your whole life and never hear the application of how it really works. So I appreciate you joining us and being a part of this. Till next time, bye-bye.