My So-Called Uniform

We all wear some sort of uniform during our lives. I’m not particularly talking about baseball uniforms, military uniforms or any other sort of organized activity or career that requires uniforms. I am thinking more about the life we choose, and how so many of us claim to be individuals, when in fact we just put on the same uniform as those who claim the same values and doctrines as we do.
I got to thinking about this as Beth and I walked around downtown Asheville a few weeks ago. Asheville is a haven folks looking to find their selves … matter of fact, I have always heard Asheville as the sort of town where you can go and live as you want – a place where individuality is encouraged and embraced. As you walk around the blocks of downtown Asheville, you notice people who dress and act out of the “mainstream” --- a lot dreadlocks … tye-dye shirts … long, shaggy hair … burly beards … long, flowing skirts. I started to notice that a lot of people walking around looked the same, talked the same, acted the same and ate at the same places. Now, I know these sort of people – I grew up with them and even spent time in their ranks! Many of them tout their individuality as some sort of idol – they don’t need to conform to any idea than their own. They march to their own beat. Ironically, most of them are marching to the same beat by the same drummer.
I spent some time amidst this doctrine … I grew my hair long, put in several ear-rings, dyed my hair, and claimed to march to my own beat. However, I never really marched to my own drummer – I looked to others who claimed the same ideas as I did, and took my cues from them … and these people looked to other people, who looked to other people, and so on – a truly vicious cycle. In reality, we were just a group of people lost in the idolatry of ourselves and our own ideas, yet we were too scared and ignorant to truly indulge all our desires, so we looked to others to figure out how to live our lives – and these people were just as clueless as we were.
Time hasn’t really changed this, and this truth isn’t relegated to neo-hippies or anybody who looks like they live outside the mainstream. We all wear a uniform of some form and color and cut. We all tend to take our cues from a group of people who tout the same ideology and doctrine of life that we claim to hold to. We are all like sheep, and all of us we have gone astray.
Scripture never really teaches individuality. Rather, it teaches a union with Christ. In His High Priestly Prayer in John 17, Jesus prays to His Father this request, “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” What is important to Jesus isn’t that we go out and claim to be individuals and to truly know ourselves … it is that we all be one in God, because as we are one with Him, then the world will see the Gospel through our lives. Individuality rebels against the idea of conformity, when in reality it is all about conformity – conforming to the ideas and practices that rebel against popular ideas. Christianity is about conformity – that we are broken to the sins that call out for the wrath of God, and molding/conforming us into the image of the one whom so loved us that He saves us from His wrath. It isn’t a conformity that beats us down and turns everyone into robot Christians … whether, it is a conformity that allows us to be the very individuals that God created us to be!
The fall of man revolved around rebellion – rebellion against truth and following that truth. Since that point, mankind has rebelled against God and his created meaning. When God graciously calls us into His grace and mercy, He begins to restore us to be individuals again – individuals who are united to Him through Christ. The basis of true individuality is in union with Christ – that is meant to be our uniform! That our main end in life is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever – that is our individual uniform! We can never truly be ourselves until we are found in Christ. We can never truly live life as God created us to live until our hearts are found at the Gospel cross. You can never be you until you bow down and call God “Abba”.
What is your uniform? What influences your life and walk? Without Christ, you are not an individual – you are just someone who is lost in the shuffle of a life ruined by sin. With Christ, you will truly know yourself – but, most of all, you will truly know one who loves you more than any other ideology or false prophet. I encourage you to examine the Gospel – and find yourself there. In the Gospel is the only place true individuality can be found.

Soli Deo Gloria – Pastor James