Embracing the Heart of Genuine Faith: Beyond Rituals, Embracing Relationship | Rev. Elisha Satvinder


Summary & Key points
In his sermon, Ps. Elisha speaks about embracing genuine faith by building meaningful relationships, emphasizing John 15:9-11 which calls for remaining in Jesus' love by keeping His commands. He outlines various expressions of love, such as spending quality time with loved ones, serving and supporting those you care about, using kind words and affirmations, showing affection through physical touch and gift-giving, practicing active listening, and making acts of sacrifice. Ps. Elisha cautions against superficial religious observance, urging the congregation to remove facades and strive for sincerity in their relationship with God. He highlights that genuine faith should lead to transformation and good works, referencing James 2:14-26 to stress that faith without works is empty. True faith, he explains, is demonstrated through actions and service, and the authenticity of one's faith can be evaluated by their actions. He emphasizes that understanding God's love is crucial for loving others genuinely and reflects this love in all relationships and actions. Ps. Elisha encourages living out faith daily, not just on Sundays, involving heartfelt worship and true transformation. He calls the congregation to engage with God's word and allow it to shape their lives. In conclusion, he urges seeking the fullness of God's love, letting it permeate every aspect of being, and reflecting on motivations to ensure they align with a genuine love for God and others.
Show Transcript

This morning, I want to talk about embracing a heart of genuine faith by realizing relationships now. It may sound like a mouthful, and I won’t cover everything in just 40-45 minutes, but we can build a framework. You know, it’s not too much trouble, and I think building frameworks is sort of our move from last week. John 15:9-11 talks about the Father’s love for us. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now, remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. He gives us a great example to continue in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

 

We all look for joy, not just the joy of jumping up and down, but the joy that brings freedom within our hearts, knowing that God’s peace is with us. We always look for some form of freedom, peace, and joy. We can be happy, sad, or angry. Some people seem like they’ve been baptized in a bottle of vinegar—they don’t know how to smile. But Jesus says, “Remain in my love so that your joy may be complete.”

 

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. Jesus laid down his life, and you are my friends if you do what I command. Let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love.

 

So, how do we express love and attachment to different people and things? Let’s break it down into two categories: people and things. Now, these are the things that are dear to us. How do I express love to a person dear to me? Typically, I would express devotion and affection in two areas through our lives. People first: if you love somebody, what do you do? You spend quality time with them, right? You fall in love and can’t wait to spend time with the person. Before you’re married, you can’t wait for the person to leave the room. Something for us to consider. But think about this, when you love someone, I’m talking in broader terms here. You look for ways to

spend time with the person, right? You find ways. If you really love a friend, you look forward to lunch or dinner with them. Isn’t that true? You look forward to it because it’s an expression of attachment. You build experiences that bond.

 

What do you do next? You find it very easy to serve those people that you love. You demonstrate care through service. You know, you help them out. If you really love your home, it’s not just you go there and sit, and everybody serves you. You’re happy to keep the house clean, you’re happy to cook, you’re happy to serve everybody at home. You know, you do everything to support another person. Now, you love your friends, and you support your friends. What do you do? You’re there for them. Everyone, yeah.

 

So then we have verbal affirmations, kind words, affectionate words. We say warm, warm things, you know, we express our love. It’s like husbands and wives going for counseling. Finally, one tells the other, “The day I change my mind about loving you, I will tell you. But until then, I told you I love you during the wedding day.” And that’s all. But we all know we want affirmation, right? You come, you meet friends, not just home. You know, “Hey, Mom, Dad, I love you.” Your children say, “I love you,” right? Kids look forward to the affirmation when we come and say, “I love you, I miss you.” We love those affirmations. It builds us up; it strengthens the

bond. But sometimes you meet somebody and it’s silly, you hug or kiss, you know, holding hands. You express, okay, affection. And then there’s gift-giving. You know, someone likes something, you buy things for them. You go out, you buy things for your kids. Why? It’s an expression. You buy something back for your family, thoughtfulness. You show value to the person. “Hey, you matter to me.” Yeah, “You matter to me.”

 

And then the other part is active listening, not passive listening. Are you hearing me? “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” then responding, “I’m responding with ‘uh-huh’ but my mind is elsewhere.” Yeah. So active listening, understanding the thoughts and feelings. Then acts of sacrifice, you know, someone is struggling, and you’re there for them. You take extra miles. I know people, and you know them as well. Some parents go and do two jobs. Why? So that their kids can go to school. That’s love, the affection, the attachment. We do it for family, we do it for friends, for so many things, in so many ways.

 

Now, that’s one. But then how do we express love, attachment, and even affection towards things? Sometimes you will hear people say, “That guy cares more about his wife than anything else.” You know, sometimes what we own, our golf clubs, that’s right. “I don’t play golf,” you know, the golf clubs or something of value. Wow, it’s nobody can touch. You know, it will be bloody murder if they touch it. You know, you have so much value. You polish those things every day. Some people love their shoes so much, every day they polish their shoes. Why? The shoe must shine, and they are one. So you express time, effort, money on things that you like, Fisher. Some people love fishing. Oh my goodness, they can stare at the fish for hours, just looking at the fish, “Wow.” The joy, “Don’t change it, just go.” You’re so enamored with the fish, you can spend hours at the spot, wherever it is. Yeah, we can look into it, yeah.

 

And what we share with others and we give love, things, time, energy, and we also do that for work as well. It could be our business, so passing down generation, our kids to have something that we had. Our grandkids, whatever it be. So expressing love, attachment, and affection towards people and things is a combination of your actions, next is your words, three is your gestures, attitude, what they convey, they convey creation and emotional connection. It’s very connected. So those things that we share are supposed to bring an expression of what fulfillment in our lives. So we tell some, “Oh, you complete me,” or “Now that I have you,” or “Now that I have this community,” “Now that I have this friendship,” but there needs to be a foundation. God needs to be the center of it all. Because if not, the value goes off. Because

without God in the center, it becomes all about our personal choice, all about ourselves. And then what it does, it competes with God for your attention.

 

This is why he says in the sacred place of my heart, “Let there be no sacred throne that survives.” Let there be no sacred throne that survives. So this is why you and I must learn this one thing: how do we embrace and cultivate a heart of genuine faith? It needs to go beyond the surface. So one of the things we need to do is remove the facade. You heard me say this before, you see. The other thought is they have different faces they put in front, the smiley, the stern, the different ones, you know. Now that we get the word hypocrite from, okay, so in Greek, in French, it called hypocrite. So it expressed, it spoke of this whole play, this theater. You see the person run, they get the next face, and then they come back, and then they put back the, and they come back. So it’s few faces, so it’s called hypocrites. Yeah, you’re one person there, you’re another person here. So that’s what it talks about. Okay, so we need to remove the facade.

 

Now, the challenge is this: all of us, all of us have some level of facade. You cannot say, “Oh, this is me, good at least.” It starts with you. We all have a level of hypocrite in us. If I don’t deal with it, I can never see the sincerity and the genuineness of God’s love for me because he has to always try to penetrate this facade that I have. So this facade, and I will call this facade a

religious observance. Let me explain that. Now, religious observance, and we must look into the depth of our relationship with our Savior, our Father. So I want us to move on to this place of discovering the depths of God’s love. Now, you might miss this. No, it’s not delving into the depths of God’s love. See, wrong, God’s love for us. I can never love another accurately, simply, fully, sincerely without first understanding God’s love for me. I can never love another accurately, sincerely without first knowing God’s love and then loving back. That’s our action.

 

Okay, so in our pursuit of faith, we talk faith and think faith. It is all about our problem of faith. But faith is not faith without action. So many Christians struggle with this. So I must gap the fundamental question: what moves my heart to love God? What moves my heart to love? You know, not what moves your heart to love something else, not what moves your heart. No, we know we’re right. And you know what, some, you need to do, you need that. You have your action. Here are some people. They cook a nice meal, and you say, “Okay, what moves my heart to love God?” And let me say this as well. I know what moves my heart. I said this earlier, to love another person or things. But I need to ask myself a hard question, and trust me, I’m not standing here and saying to you, “Hey guys, let’s remember in prep, I have to deal with my own heart.” So most of this time, it’s not easy to prepare a sermon because you’re sitting there, “Oh, stuck, right. God is dealing with me.” “Okay, what moves my heart now?” It’s easy for me to recite it as words. “Oh Lord God, our Father. I can say, ‘I love you, Lord,’ and I lift my voice up to worship you.” But when I walk out, will I love you, God, like I love water? Seriously.

 

So by what I do, I truly capture the thought of affection and reverence toward my Savior. We just celebrated Easter. Isn’t it? I’ll look at two other scriptures. The Psalmist says, “I love you, Lord, my strength. I love you, Lord, because you deliver me.” No, “I love you, God, my strength. I love you.” Next one, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire beside you.” I said, “God, I cannot pray this. I cannot pray this. I struggle because so many things I desire before God. There are other relationships I hold dear. There are things that I own.” “God, can you remove this from the Bible or not?” I struggle. What does it mean to love God beyond Sunday or a few days daily? But today, I challenge you. Last night, I was so tired. I thought, “I go sleep.” Then I thought of this, and I said, “I cannot sleep now because I’m challenged by the sermon that I prepared.” And I’m upset with myself. “Am I loving God, knowing God, but what does it mean to love God beyond Sunday?” How does it translate in my devotion? And you notice I’m not saying so much yous or us, I’m saying my because I’m dealing with my heart

here. How do I deal with this with a typical act in my life and my relationships? Not just my life, my relationships. And relationships are not just those you are sitting at home with. Relationships are with those you are in school with, in college with, in the office, in business, and in church. And in church, you cannot separate it, but it’s one same God. It says, “Consistency of that. I cannot change that.” That’s the challenge. How am I dealing with it? So how does it translate? How does it evolve? What does it mean when I say, “I love you, Lord?”

 

I turn around and say to my wife, “I love you.” Like, what do you want, woman? Cannot just say this to you. If I say, “I love you, my sister,” you’ll look and say, “Strange, why is he saying this? Please, can you get this with me?” So if I say, “I love you,” what does that mean? It must take place and then it becomes responsible. I say, “I love you.” “Bye, see you tomorrow. Thank you.” I say to my kids, “I love you.” If I say to you, church, “I love you,” what does that mean? If you say, “Pastor, we love you,” hey, what does it mean? What, in “I love you,” does that mean? If you say, “I love you, Lord,” it means remain the same game. No, no, no, no. Now it must move beyond this. Am I making sense? Okay, thank you. I thought you were panicking already. So, remember, it’s difficult to prepare this this week. How do I live it in my everyday life? It begins with this thing. It begins with distinguishing genuine devotion from ceremonial activity. And I will explain to you what ceremonial activity is, in my opinion. Because I prepared them with our good intentions. Let me start with the premise of our good intentions. But I believe all of us have good intentions. Amen? If you don’t have good intentions, come, I pray with you afterward. Okay, all of us start with good intentions. But when we start the day, we must also guard ourselves against the column of ceremonial activity, ceremonial, an analytical, pragmatic thing. We say, “No, we say, ‘That’s church.’ That’s ceremonial.” In the next minute, I will frame to you that we can be ceremonial. How we can be ceremonial and make fun of our check, it’s the bomb. We call this ritual, but what we do is neglect the more important matters. Now, James 2:14 gives us a very sobering warning to us. Giving lip service to God but have no genuine love for him and no life transformation brings this to true genuine love and life transformation. Okay, so I read it in two versions and then I’m going to read more into it. But let me pause to explain.

 

My friends, Jesus used the word friends, said, “My friends,” and by the way, James is the first book that is written in the New Testament, not Matthew, just by the way. Okay, so James is the first book that is written. My friends, what good is it to say you have faith? Again, faith is not about, “Hey, I believe.” You know, it’s beyond that. When you don’t do anything to show you really do have faith. So faith is not stagnant. Can this kind of faith save you? J.B. Phillips, I like it. He says, “Now, what use is it, my brothers, for a man to say he has faith if his actions do not correspond with it? Could that faith save anyone?” So I say, “I love you.” If I say, “I love you,” do I value the person I’m saying, “I love you”? How do I express it? Rubber on the road. I talked about when we love something or someone, we do certain things. So when I say, “I love you,” what does it mean? If I say to my wife or my children, I say to you, “I love you,” what does that

mean? Does it mean I give up? No. It means labor. What does it mean? What does it look like? So you cannot just say, “I have faith,” but without showing anything. It is a rhetorical question. He is not answering you. He is making you think. Okay, so James 2:14 is a rhetorical question. Such faith can save no one. It must do something. It must never be false. So, let’s read it in context.

 

My friends, what good is it to say you have faith and you don’t do anything to show you really do have faith? Can this kind of faith save you? James 2:15 says, “If you know someone doesn’t have any clothes or food, you just say, ‘I hope all goes well for you. I hope you will be warm and have plenty to eat.’ But good does nothing unless you do something to help.” Faith does not do good. It is alone, and this is not love. It requires genuine commitment to expressing Christ’s love and kindness in our daily lives.

 

So, let’s read the next text. James 2:15. “My friends, what good is it to say you have faith and

you don’t do anything to show you really do have faith? Can this kind of faith save you?” If you know someone doesn’t have any clothes or food, you just say, “I hope all goes well for you. I hope you will be warm and have plenty to eat.” But good does nothing unless you do something to help. Faith that does nothing is worth nothing alone. And this is not love. It requires genuine commitment to expressing Christ’s love and kindness in our daily lives.

 

So, let’s read the next text. James 2:17-19. “Let’s begin, Church. So settle in your heart through faith. May I pray you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord’s holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Amen. That’s the pursuit of the fullness of God. Amen. Can we just take a few moments to ask that question just now? Why do we do it? Because only you can answer that. Worship as they lead in worship. Why don’t you contemplate on that question? Let us do this in a closed manner.”