Sermon from St. Paul UMC

Faith That Works

James 2:14-17 (NRSvue)

There is a version of Christianity that is entirely internal — something you believe, something you feel, something you hold quietly inside. James has no patience for it. In the seventh message of The People Called, we open James 2 and hear one of the most direct challenges in the New Testament: faith without works is dead. Not weak. Not incomplete. Dead. But this is not a sermon about earning your way or proving your worth. It is a sermon about what genuine faith actually looks like when it gets up in the morning. Galatians 5:6 gives us the frame Wesley always returned to — faith working through love. Not faith plus works as two separate things, but faith expressing itself in love as one inseparable reality. The Wesleyan tradition has always held personal holiness and social holiness together — the inner transformation of the heart and the outward movement toward the neighbor. You cannot have one without the other. The bottom line of this message is simple: a genuine faith is an active faith, showing itself in love toward our neighbor. Faith moves without the plan figured out.

Preached by Rev. Dylan Ward | July 19, 2026