‘Who am I?’ is an understandable question in a secular world. What can I say about myself? Am I the mere transient product of the forces of blind chance? Many young people are anxious over such questions. Therefore, the church and its teachers have for the last decade or so rightly responded to this question assuring Christians of their identity in Christ.

Many churches I come across see to be experiencing a lack of commitment compared with former years. This is seen in different ways. It could be the demise of the evening service. It often has a generational aspect to it. The faithful ‘never miss’ attenders are from an older age group while the younger married people are missing. It is seen in a lack of volunteers to take on responsibilities for the church like in children’s work or becoming an elder etc. It is also seen in a reluctance by many Christians to become church members – they like the fringe where they can hang loose.
My main message to pastors is that this lack of commitment in the church is not necessarily your fault. No doubt the devil likes to use this to tell you what a useless pastor you are. But actually, the bigger picture says something different.
One factor in this may be the increased pressures of modern life. Whereas jobs used to be 9-5 now they verge on 24/7. Another is the so-called therapy culture. People are encouraged to see themselves as frail and to prioritise looking after themselves and their families first.
The Century of the Self
But behind much of this is the fact that society at large is enamoured with individualism. Some sociologists speak of our times as ‘the century of the self’. Your life is yours. You’ve only got one life, live it for yourself (very different from Christian sacrifice). And this attitude has rubbed off on many Christians in the current generation. Today’s digital technology is very individual. In fact, very often ‘progress’ is calibrated in individualistic terms. ‘Personal’ means good (you’re in control). 
It is not that current society has no desire for community or interacting with others. It does. But it likes community with few or no obligations or responsibilities – being together at a rock concert, or the pub, or the online chat room. It is community which leaves the individual pretty much free. And of course, ‘freedom to be myself’ is deeply embedded motor of the sexual revolution. And the individualistic mindset which is in the cultural air we breathe, inevitably impacts churches.
We ought to be addressing this current individualism and teaching on it from Scripture – speaking into where our society is at present. 
Scripture and Individualism
My tentative summary is that Scripture seems to teach that though the individual is very important, the individual only finds true fulfilment in community. The Bible’s theme is of the significance of the individual in the service of community.
God
From the start of Scripture, we are faced with a God who reveals himself one God existing in three persons. The first verse of the Bible shows us that though there is only one true God, yet there is a plurality within God. In Genesis 1.1, ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth’, the Hebrew noun for God (Elohim) is plural while the verb ‘created’ is singular – denoting one God.
When it comes to the initial description of the creation of human beings we read, ‘Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,”’ Genesis 1.26. The words ‘us’…’our’…’our’ are prominent. Though this is sometimes interpreted as God announcing his decision to create humanity to the heavenly court of angels, it more naturally conveys a first hint of the trinitarian relations in the being of the one God. 
The rest of the Bible, of course, makes clear that the true God is Trinitarian, Father, Son and Spirit, one God (e.g., Matt 28:19; 2 Cor 13:14). 
Humanity
The way the original making of mankind in God’s image is announced contains both the singular and the plural. ‘So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them’ (Gen 1:27). There is a poetic parallel; ‘He created him…he created them.’
The individual is very important. This is clear from the way that Adam first exists as an individual and has personal dealings with God (Gen 2:7, 16, 17). God addresses Adam as ‘you’, singular (vv. 16, 17). Adam enters the garden alone and is given his own task (Gen 2:15). Yet though the individual is important he or she is not meant to live in a relational vacuum. ‘It is not good for the man to be alone’ (Gen 2:18). A solitary Adam is ‘not good’. That phrase may seem somewhat jarring as we read Genesis. But if we have grasped God’s triunity, the ‘not good’ ought not to be unexpected. Being alone is not what God intends for human beings, persons in his image. It is only through being together with another and others (whether in marriage or wider society) that the image of the relational God can fully blossom. The human individual finds fulfilment of his or her true self in community. 
Now, of course, when we come to Genesis 3 things change. We find the devil appealing in a very individualistic way to Eve (Gen 3:6), with the result that with the coming of sin, community is shattered (3:12). Distrust, suspicion and accusation abound – even against God. Community with God and between Adam and Eve is fractured.
Jesus
Jesus frequently acts in such a way as not only to bless individuals, but to restore isolated outcasts to their place within the community of the people of God. Both the individual and the community are important. 
He deliberately seeks out the lost. Rejected but repentant Zacchaeus has a new heart for people and Jesus states that, ‘this man too is a son of Abraham,’ – he belongs (Lk 19:1-10).
The miracles of the Master accomplish the same goal. Lepers who must be kept quarantined are cleansed and so reinstated in society (Mk 1:40-45). The demoniac who lived alone among the tombs is restored to his right mind and sent back to his people (Mk 5:19). The isolated woman, embarrassed by her issue of blood which made her ‘unclean’ (Mk 5:32) is healed, confesses her faith publicly and is a ‘daughter’ (5.34) – part of Christ’s family.
Our Lord’s atoning death is, of course, legitimately seen as being for individuals (Gal 2:20), but also has a definite collective aim: Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Eph 5:25). The rebuilding of community is part of Jesus coming to undo and destroy the works of the devil.
The Early Church
The outpouring of the Spirit and the preaching of Jesus as ‘Lord and Christ’ results in the calling together of God’s new community – the church. This fledgeling assembly is marked by togetherness. 
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In Mark 1, Jesus spoke and acted with divine power and authority. He could receive the diseased to himself and could send them away well. If he can overcome a man’s skin-diseased condition, what else can he do, and what greater works can he accomplish? For example, what can he do about the problem of sin and death?

A skin-diseased man approached Jesus in Mark 1:40, and approaching someone while being unclean was something you were not supposed to do. The law of God said so. In Leviticus 13, if a priest confirmed you had a skin disease, you were to dwell outside the camp until it was resolved. If you were close to crossing paths with someone, you were supposed to dishevel your hair and clothes and shout “Unclean!” so that people had fair warning.
But the skin-diseased man in Mark 1 approached Jesus anyway. He fell down before him and said, “If you will, you can make me clean” (1:40). Now that statement is especially intriguing because no unclean person would fall before an Old Testament priest and ask for cleansing. Priests could diagnose, but they could not heal. What was this man doing?
The man had heard about what Jesus could do. In Mark 1:32, Jesus healed the sick at Capernaum (1:32–34). Word continued to spread, and more people came searching for Jesus the next day (1:36–37). Later, Jesus went throughout all Galilee preaching and casting out demons (1:39). What a report! Jesus had authority over diseases and demons! The reason the skin-diseased man came to Jesus is because he knew what Jesus could do.
“If you will, you can make me clean,” he told Jesus (Mark 1:40). The clean/unclean categories were Old Testament ceremonial evaluations about whether someone was ritually fit to approach the tabernacle (“clean”) or whether someone was ritually unfit to approach the tabernacle (“unclean”). Uncleanness also impacted family and social relationships, because perpetual uncleanness required dwelling outside the camp of Israel. The man’s request to Jesus was bold and faith-filled.
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Jesus came into the world to transform us by leading us out of the darkness of self-serving falsehood and into the light of God’s true purpose. And this demands a personal and life-transforming response: Trust Jesus Christ to secure your forgiveness with God and lead you in righteousness for His glory. Divest yourself of control over your own life, and make Him your Lord. Jesus’ death on the cross has made forgiveness possible. 

In his 1939 Christmas broadcast to the British nation, King George VI read from a poem by Minnie Louise Haskins
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year,
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year,
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”1
While those words were obviously meaningful to George VI and his subjects amid an escalating war with Germany, they still find an echo in the hearts and minds of men and women today. We live in a time of great uncertainty and anxiety. Whether the context is geopolitics, the national economy, clashing worldviews, or even our own family lives, people today are treading into the darkness, looking for some light that will show them the way.
In John 3:19, in His conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus shared the good news that we celebrate during the Christmas season: “The light has come into the world.” And the nature of the light is not a philosophy. It’s not a political ideology. It’s not a sentiment or a concept. The light is a person: Jesus Christ. God, in His love, sent Jesus into the world to light our way forward, leading us out of a world of death and into life with Him.
Jesus is the light by which we can see. Or, to use Haskins’s metaphor, He is the hand of God extended to us—better than any would-be light this world might offer. How, then, can we reflect His light in a world of darkness? Let’s consider the answer Jesus Himself gives.
People Love the Darkness
“The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” (John 3:19–20)
Before we can understand the beauty and power of the light of Christ, we first must understand what separates His light from the darkness all around it.
It’s not normal for burglars to call out from the darkness of the yard, “Excuse me, could you turn the spotlights on? I’m trying to steal from your house!” They’re burglars. They do their work in the dark. The worst thing that can happen to them is for the lights to come on and reveal them. Similarly, the Bible says that apart from Christ, we live our lives in darkness (Eph. 5:8; 1 Peter 2:9).
The darkness of our time is revealed in many different ways, and certainly in intellectual confusion and moral perversion. When people hear Jesus say, “The light has come into the world,” many respond, “That’s very interesting, but I have my own views. I have another light that I look to, and that light is as good as any.” Some have the notion today that beliefs are valid as long as they mean something to somebody.
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