As many of you know, one of the more recent popular movies is The Greatest Showman, which is a film loosely based on the life of P.T. Barnum, of circus fame. Although there are many incredible songs on the soundtrack, the song that became the anthem for the movie is entitled This Is Me. This song quickly became an anthem for many who are disenfranchised, marginalized and bullied.
Read the lyrics to the first half of the song:
I am not a stranger to the dark
Hide away, they say
‘Cause we don’t want your broken parts
I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars
Run away, they say
No one’ll love you as you are
But I won’t let them break me down to dust
I know that there’s a place for us
For we are glorious
When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out
I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I’m meant to be, this is me
Look out ’cause here I come
And I’m marching on to the beat I drum
I’m not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me
As one of the songwriters said, “It’s the moment where they realize, ‘We are who we are, and we’re going to own our own identity.”
The question I have for us is, “Do we know, understand and fully embrace our new identity…our new identity in Christ?”
Let me give you 6 ways that God has given you, if you have trusted in Christ, a new identity.
1. God has made you a new person.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). You’ve changed. You’re a new person with a new name and a new identity.
2. God has given you a new privilege.
“For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by Him we cry, ‘Abba Father.’ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are
God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs-heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory” (Romans 8:15-17).
You’ve been given an eternal significance that Christ graciously shares with you!
3. God has given you a new possession.
Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24).
4. God has given you a new promise.
“And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 1:13).
5. God has given you a new power.
“…and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand
in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 1:19-20).
6. God has given you a new purpose.
“And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Corinthians 5:15).
As a new person in Christ, we are to put into PRACTICE what we already are in POSITION.
Think like the person you are. “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above…set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:1-2).
Live like the person you are. “…since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self…” (Colossians 3:10).