Infectious Love, I John 2:15-17
Introduction
My family was infected with some kind of sickness a couple of months ago that we have had the most terrible time getting over. In fact, I think we may still have it. It all started when my wife Christina had a small cough and a little bit of a sore throat. At first we just thought it was a little cold – nothing more.
Then my two year old son Sebastian got the cold and before you know it I had the sore throat and then after a little while we all had a headache and stuffy noses and were just sick all over! Then we were driving one day to take Sebastian to swim lessons in a nearby town when my eye turned very red and I started to scratch it and wash it out with water, thinking that I had an eyelash or a piece of debris or something stuck in my eye.
Then a day or so later both Sebastian and I woke up with a bunch of gunk in our eyes! I had to be at the hospital with a parishioner who was having surgery early that morning so I went to the urgent care clinic near the doctor to find out that I had an eye infection… wonderful!
At first I was convinced that it was the St. Bernard’s fault because she always has a little bit of gunk built up in her eyes in the morning but a trip to the vet proved my theory wrong! She didn’t have an infection and I learned that it is a very rare thing for a dog to pass on that kind of infection any way.
After I returned home Christina and I took Sebastian to the doctor and sure enough he had an eye infection too. Later that day Christina went to the doctor to find out that while she did not have an eye infection, she did have an ear infection.
Sebastian and I took our eye drops three times a day while Christina took her antibiotics. After more than a week had passed we were all still sick but we were feeling a little bit better.
After another week went by though Christina and Sebastian were feeling much worse and both were running temperatures. We went back to the doctor again to learn that their ear infections had returned, or at least never gone away.
They got even more antibiotics and it took another couple of weeks before Sebastian and I were back in good shape, although Christina took another couple of weeks to feel better and I’m not sure she is completely over it even now!
Transition
Some infections are very hard to fight. Some infections are deadly once they get inside of your blood stream because they begin to take over and destroy healthy cells, causing your body not to function the way it was intended.
According to one encyclopedia an infection is defined this way: “An infection is the detrimental colonization of a host organism by a foreign species. In an infection, the infecting organism seeks to utilize the host’s resources to multiply (usually at the expense of the host). The infecting organism, or pathogen, interferes with the normal functioning of the host and can lead to chronic wounds, gangrene, loss of an infected limb, and even death.”
Scripture
1 John 2:15-17 says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions – is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” (ESV)
This morning I want to talk to you about infection but not about bodily infections like a cold. This morning I am going to share with you about infectious love.
You see the things we love have a way of infecting our very souls much in the same way that viruses and bacteria infect our bodies. Only the consequences of the things we love are much more long lasting than an earthly infection – they are of eternal consequence and significance.
This morning let us place our love of this world on one side of a scale while we place our love of Christ on the other and see which one comes up short.
The Love of the World
Perhaps at no other time is it more appropriate to examine where our heart is than during the season of Advent. Everywhere we turn we see Christmas lights, Christmas sales, and Christmas lines at the store.
How easy it would be to get so caught up in the madness of Christmas that we would forget what Christmas is even about. Christmas is about the coming of Messiah – the promised one of God – who would save not only His own people but the entire world through His sacrifice at the Cross.
How great is the number of those who have forgotten or disregarded the value and meaning of Christmas in this society which has turned in on itself and abandoned even the very notion of faith.
As many of you already know, Christina and I were in Traverse City this Thanksgiving. We drove to a hotel that evening so that we could get up at 3:00 A.M. to get in line at Toys ‘R’ us to catch the door buster sales that morning.
This is something that we started doing years ago when we lived in Arizona and we have made it a sort of tradition in our family. In fact, one year Christina and I were on the news in Minneapolis because we were at the very front of the line at the KB Toy Store at the Mall of America.
In case you were unaware, something like that is a big deal to the more ardent Black Friday shopper!
That morning at Toys ‘R’ us I watched the most ridiculous scene unfold. There were a lot of people in line that morning. I was near the front of the line as I waited in the cold just to get in and I was behind at least 100 people.
The store had encouraged people to make a line that wrapped like a coil all the way through the store. Several people had grown weary of waiting in the very long line and had started forming their own line much to the dismay of one particular man.
The man and a couple of other people in the line pointed out to the manager that people were forming their own line. They did so in the kindest manner possible, I assure you! When they felt that their complaint was not being addressed with as much zeal as it required the man made it very clear how he felt about the slow to action store manager.
With his fist clinched high in the air he said, “You’re stupid!” The store manage apologized to the unhappy patron of Toys ‘R’ us and the man again said in the same tone and again with his fist held high, “You’re stupid!”
Another patron spoke up and assured the store manage that he was doing a good job. This displeased the man and he once again told the store manager what kind of job he thought the manager was doing.
As all of this was going on I was standing just a few feet away waiting to check out enjoying the spectacle of it all.
The woman standing between the man and myself said – very loudly – “maybe some of us have forgotten why we are here at the toy store this morning!” The good news is that it all ended quietly and nothing serious occurred.
But the words of the woman standing in line behind me have reverberated my thinking for the past couple of weeks – “Have we forgotten why we are here?”
Have we traded the genuine meaning of the coming into this world of this tiny infant who would one day reveal himself as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords? Have we been so inundated with the love of material things that we have actually been infected with the love of this world?
James 2:5 says, “Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?” (ESV)
The Love of Christ
You see, we have been called to so much more than all of the trappings of our culture. Being infected by the love of Christ moves us far beyond a love for possessions, money, or any other material comfort.
Being infected by the love of Christ moves us to beyond these immediate trappings of dry religion and into the deep waters of knowing God. Being infected by the love of Christ gives us a hunger to win the lost to knowledge of Christ’s love!
Being infected by the love of Christ moves us into a desire to build God’s Eternal Kingdom rather than an obsession to build our own little temporary kingdoms!
In the Gospel of Matthew 7:26 Jesus says, “And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.” (ESV)
Oh, that it might be known of us that we don’t have time for the building of sand castles because we are far to busy laying bricks on the walls of the Kingdom of Heaven!
The trouble is – I’m terribly afraid – that so many of us think by infection – catching opinions like the common cold? Instead of listening to Christ to learn what we ought to love, we listen to a perverse and sin-sickened culture.
Conclusion
Around the turn of the century, there was a great deal of controversy over the alleged lack of cleanliness on the part of bakers. Some of the bakeries in the city of Brooklyn were closed by the State Factory Inspector on this account.
It is, of course, very important for food service industries to follow the highest standards of sanitation and hygiene, and they should, indeed, require their employees to be cleanly in their habits.
But how much more important it is that all who handle the gift of God’s grace should have clean hands and pure hearts, that no infection of worldliness or sin may cling to the sacred food of the bread of life.
Let us learn to fill our hearts with a love for the things of God so that the word and will of God will get into our very bloodstream like a holy infection which we are not able or willing to fight!
Let us learn to wash our hands of the filthiness of this world so that we avoid being infected by the ugliness of selfishness, lust for money, or any of the other contagious vices that we seem to find everywhere we look in this world of sin!
Today, let us recommit ourselves to being infected by the love of Christ so that we might bring honor to God rather than seeking after the fleeting things of this world.
Amen.
