Sermon from St. Paul UMC

Give Me Your Hand

Ephesians 4:1-6 (NRSVue)

Look around any church and you’ll notice something: you didn’t pick the people in the pews with you. Different backgrounds, different opinions, different politics, and yet, there we all are. In the final week of The People Called, we turn to Ephesians 4, where Paul makes a startling claim: he never asks the church to become one. He says we already are. One body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, unity isn’t something we build; it’s something Christ has already done. So why does the church feel so divided? And how do we love people we genuinely disagree with? For that, we turn to John Wesley’s sermon “Catholic Spirit” and one strange handshake in 2 Kings, where the question was never “do you agree with me?” but “is your heart true to mine?” Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? This Sunday we close the series where it was always heading: one people, called together, hand in hand.

Preached by Rev. Dylan Ward | July 26, 2026