You Have a New Identity

Speaker A: Good morning and welcome to this brand new day. This is Scripture Links daily dose of Inspiration for Thursday, September 10, 2026. And today is National School Picture Day. How many of us ever really liked our school pictures? They seem to be so awkward and you know, I don't know. I don't. I never like my school pictures but I'm sure as a parent you probably think it's the cutest thing, but really it. Well, I won't go there. It also is National TV Dinner Day. And little interesting things here about the TV dinner. Of course I remember them as a kid being a heck of a lot bigger than they are now. And I don't know, maybe it wasn't. Might just be a child thing. But anyway, the TV dinner was invented in 1953 by the Swanson Sons company. They first sold the TV dinner in 1953 and the price was 98 cents. They estimated that they would sell about 5,000 dinners in their first year and they actually sold more than 10 million in that first year. What was the first TV dinner, you ask? Turkey, cornbread dressing, peas and sweet potatoes. Some interesting things that happened on this date. 1955 was the very first episode of the TV show Gunsmoke. It aired on CBS. It went on for 20 seasons and 635 episodes. In 1984, the first episode of Jeopardy. Aired. Alex Trebek had hosted that show for 37 seasons and he died in 2020. Don't seem like it was that long ago, does it? At least it does it to me anyway. Anyway, yesterday we had looked at Israel as God's chosen people. And because they had rejected God's invitation and God's free gift of salvation, God reached out and made that invitation and made that that free gift available to all. Since the Bible records Israel as God's chosen, I asked myself, who then are we? For that we look to? First Peter, chapter number two, verses nine and ten. So I invite you to turn there with me. First Peter, chapter number two, verses nine and ten. And as you're turning there, have you ever wondered who you are and where you fit in this world? Of course, we all have. The world will try to define you by your past, by your failures, by your accomplishments, by your possessions, or even by what other people think about you. But if you are a child of God, your identity isn't determined by any of those things. Peter reminds us that God has already given us a new identity and it is far greater than anything the world could give us. First Peter, chapter number two, verses nine and ten. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that you should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Let's break this down here. Four things that make up the believer's spiritual identity. The first thing he says is, we are a chosen generation. We are chosen. Do you ever think about that? We are chosen. You know how many of us in gym class when we were in school, since we talked about school picture day, we can go back and probably relive one of the terrors of our childhood. But how many times did we line up? Maybe it was in gym class or maybe it was after school to play a basketball game or a football game, baseball game, something like that. And everybody lined up. Two people became captain. How they, they picked themselves to be captain, I don't know. And then they would go down the line and people, they would choose who they want for their team. Now if you were like me, and I think most of us probably are, we were one of the last ones chosen. And how embarrassing it was if you, if, if a girl was picked before you. But God has chosen us. We are chosen. We are selected and reborn into God's family by his will, by his invitation, by his gift of salvation. We are chosen. We are a royal priesthood. We have direct access to God. Remember when Jesus had died on the cross, what was the very first thing that happened? The. The veil in the temple that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple was torn in two. That means we now have direct access to God through, through the shed blood of Jesus. Our calling is to serve and to, to intercede as priests for the King. We are called to serve God. And part of serving God means that we intercede for other people. Do you ever have someone come and say, hey, can you pray for me? That's intercession. That's what we're interceding for. People. We're a chosen generation. We're a royal priesthood. We are a holy nation. Nation. We are distinct. We are set apart. We are a set apart community governed by God and His holiness. We are governed by the things we read in the Bible, God's word to us. We are a distinct set apart community. Why don't we live like we're distinct and set apart anymore? We're trying to blend into the world, blending into the very thing that God saved us from. I don't understand why we keep going back there. And finally he says, we are a peculiar people. We are purchased people and we belong exclusively to God. Did you ever have this experience where someone came up to you and said, hey, what's different about you? That's part of being a peculiar people. That's part of being set apart. Because we need to be different, we need to live different, we need to act different than the rest of the world acts. So this is our identity. We're chosen. We're a royal priesthood. We're a holy nation. We're a peculiar people. And that should excite us, right? It should. But then I discovered something different or something else here, I guess I should say, not something different. Did you know that each of these terms, the chosen generation, the royal priesthood, the holy nation and peculiar people, did you know that they were used in the Old Testament as part of God's covenant with Israel? We read this in Exodus, chapter number 9, 5, 6. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people. For all the earth is mine, and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. So you see, these same things, royal priesthood, holy nation, peculiar people. These same things characterized and was the spiritual identity of the nation of Israel. And because they rejected that invitation, because they rejected God's gift, that same spiritual identity is given to us today. We read In Isaiah chapter 43, in verse number 20, the beast of the field shall honor me, the dragons and the devil and the owls, because I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give drink to my people. My chosen. My chosen. See, that spiritual identity was given to Israel and is now given to us today. We have become God's chosen people. What do we do with this identity? What are we going to do with this? Let's look here, rest of verse number nine. That ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. What do we do with this identity? Well, first thing we need to do is praise God. We need to praise God for this identity. We need to praise God for this new identity. You know, thinking back to school age again, this whole school picture thing got me thinking back to my school, school time. But your identity was made up most mostly in what people thought about you. You know, you had the jocks that, that, you know, was good at sports. You had what? When I Went to school, you had what we called the preppies, which was good at schoolwork. And then you had a long list of things like geeks and nerds and things like that that really wasn't good in anything. Really didn't like going to school, but you had to, because that's what you did when you were a kid, that made up your identity and that's who you became, and that's how people looked at you. But now, as Christians, for those of us that have accepted God's invitation, that have accepted the gift that God has given us, we have a new identity. And we need to praise God for that. We need to praise God also because he called us. Look at this verse. He called us out of sin, out of our life of sin, which is the darkness here, and into his marvelous life. That's what the light is there. He called us out of the darkness into the light. That's reason enough to praise God right there. But we need to praise him because of what he's done for us, but also because of who he made us. The identity we're given then he says, which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God, which has not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. So in the time past, another thing we need to do is I with our identity, is that we make. We need to make sure we don't forget what God brought us out of. You know, one thing my dad and I talk about different times is how when people get successful, a lot of times they forget where they came from. You know, here in East Tennessee, just the past couple of weeks, Dolly Parton had passed away. And she's somebody that I always thought never forgot where she came from. And we need to not forget what we came from. We need not to forget the old sinful life that we had. Not that we desire to go back there, but so that we could see what God brought us out of. Then he says. Then he says, here we were not a people, but were now the people of God. Israel was God's chosen people. They rejected him. Now we are God's chosen people who have accepted that gift. Who has accepted that, that sacrifice. Who has accepted that invitation. We are now God's chosen people, he says, which have not obtained mercy, but now have mercy is simply the love to withhold punishment, the punishment that we rightfully deserve for our sins. God's withholding that punishment. God put that punishment onto the shoulders of Jesus. When Jesus was on the cross. That was the payment. That was the punishment that we deserved, that Christ had taken, so that we can accept that gift, accept that invitation, so that we can become the chosen generation, the royal priesthood, the holy nation, the peculiar people. That we should live in that identity, and that we should praise God, bring the praises to God. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. What. What identity would people associate with you? Would people that's never met you before or just met you be able to tell that you are a Christian, that you are a believer? We need to live our lives in such a way that people look at us and see something different, something they're missing, something they don't have. Think about that as you go through this day. And remember, get into God's word and allow God's word to get into you. Then share that word with someone today. Have a blessed day.