When The Spirit Breaks The Rules

The Holy Spirit does not wait for our permission, and that is both thrilling and unsettling. We start with the Pentecost story many of us know by heart, then take a sharp left into Numbers 11 where Moses hits a breaking point in the wilderness and God answers with a haunting question: “Is the Lord’s power limited?” When Spirit gets shared across seventy elders and then spills over onto two men outside the official circle, the community panics and tries to shut it down. Moses does the opposite and celebrates it, and that contrast becomes the heart of the message.

We keep it painfully practical: what happens when someone “preaches in the courtyard” today and our first instinct is not wonder but suspicion? We talk about spiritual discernment and why it matters, then name the danger of letting discernment harden into cynicism. The conversation brushes up against deal breakers and “canceling” as a modern way we narrow the space the Spirit can move, especially when a person or movement says one wrong thing and we discard everything good that came before.

Then we watch for the Spirit in ordinary compassion through a story from Philadelphia: a pizza shop’s pay-it-forward wall that has helped give away nearly 10,000 slices. We reflect on what that kind of mercy gives to people who are hungry, to people who want to help, and to a whole city that needs evidence of grace. The closing challenge is simple but demanding: practising openness is a faith discipline, and Pentecost is a long season, so we should get busy looking for the Spirit “everywhere and in everything.” If this stirred something in you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review, then tell us where you’ve seen the Spirit show up unexpectedly?

Transcript

Numbers And Leviticus Set The Tone

Pastor Darren 0:00

Well, my first question, have you ever heard a sermon from numbers? Yes. Success. All right. I knew when I picked numbers there would be one happy person in the room. How are we, Stephen? Next we work our way through Leviticus. How exciting. No, I know some of you, longtime Christians, you're waiting for your good story.

Pentecost And The Miracle Of Hearing

Pastor Darren 0:35

Uh um, you know, the Pentecost story, right? The disciples, all right. They're all up there, they're hiding, they're scared. Jesus has died, he's ascended, but now, yeah, they've got the message about something, someone coming, but it's not here yet. So they're hiding, they're trying to figure out what it all means, right? And they're stuck, and then all of a sudden they get that visit from the Holy Spirit, right? And these flames start appearing over every one of their heads, right? And then they they start uh getting some inspiration, some courage. They go out and they start preaching. They start telling the word, preaching it like Jesus told them to preach it. But the amazing thing is people are hearing it, they're listening. And part of what makes it amazing is that there's this big festival going on. So there's people from all other, all the regions coming in to not only to be part of the festival, but to sell the stuff that they've been growing or or you know, all the different layers of that. So there's a lot of diversity in the place. So they don't all speak the same language. So when they start preaching and people start understanding, it becomes part of the miracle that they're getting it, right? And and the movement kind of gets going again after Jesus' death. So you're like, where's that passage, right? It's it's it's Pentecost. We should be right there. And once again, I say, you poor people, you're cursed with this past who's like, oh, that old story again.

Moses Asks For Help From God

Pastor Darren 2:26

Let's do the numbers text. Let's dig into that thing. I I don't know, I guess there's part of me who loves the idea that there was always passion in faith, even in our stories from the Old Testament, even from numbers, which comes from pretty close to the beginning of things. But I also like the idea that maybe the spirit might have always been there with us. And we get this celebration, this acknowledgement when we finally start being more real to us, but but really the spirit's been there all along. I guess I like that idea as well. But in any case, a little bit of ramp up to this particular story. They're in there 40 years in the wilderness. You remember from our Lenten journey through Exodus? 40 years they're wandering, and you'll remember they get anxious, they get upset, they're so anxious and upset, they start looking at what was really, really good about enslavement. Hey, then maybe that wasn't so bad back there. And then Moses goes to complain to God and he says, Why do you put me in charge of all these people? They're anxious, they're scared. You, God, you should be taking care of them. You're wiping me out here. And then God's answer comes as a question back to Moses, and he says, Is the Lord's power limited? You're gonna see what God can do. At that point, Moses gathers 70 elders, and as they're gathered, a cloud comes over Moses, and then other little clouds start coming out of Moses, and they start uh uh uh resting above all of these elders up there, and then they start preaching, they start prophesying. They are in the spirit, shall we say? And it's exciting.

Two Men Prophesy Outside The Camp

Pastor Darren 4:28

Now, what happens in this story in particular, two of the men who did not go with all the 70 elders are back still with everybody else. They start getting that cloud, they start getting the inspiration, and now they're prophesying over there, but not with all the other other elders. So one young man, he hurries over, he's got to tell the guy in charge here, hey, somebody's over there. I don't know that they got permission to prophesy. And Joshua, right hand man of Moses, says, Oh, we better get over there. We better stop that right now. But Moses, Moses says, No, isn't this great? People got the spirit that prophesying. That is something we should be celebrating. Can you see why this passage gets paired with the Pentecost passage? Can you hear the similarities? I mean, if you're gonna pick an Old Testament text for Pentecost, this is a pretty darn good one. But what's interesting about it is the reaction that people have to those two guys prophesying over there, seemingly out of the guidance oversight of Moses. They aren't really recognizing the spirit that is maybe happening in these guys preaching. In fact, they're immediately suspicious, aren't they? You better go tell Moses right now. You better let him know. Now, if we're being fair, we might have had the very same reaction were we there. We have the advantage of knowing the story, having read up to it. We know that Moses went to God and said, Hey, you gotta help me out here a little bit. We know that God said, All right, some help is coming. So it's a little easier for us to sit in judgment of Joshua in this case with his suspicions, because we've got some other knowledge. But if we didn't know that, would we really have been any different? Would we really have been able to recognize the spirit here so much so that our suspicions were gone?

Suspicion Versus Celebrating The Spirit

Pastor Darren 6:50

Let's say someone was preaching in the courtyard after worship. Right? They're out there preaching, preaching away, right? And somebody's like, uh oh. I better go tell Pastor Darren. Right? And then I hopefully my first response would be great. The Holy Spirit that we are filled, and these he or she is filled with the Holy Spirit. But we all know what my second question is gonna be, right? What's he saying? What's he preaching? Is it something that fits with kind of what we're doing here? Is it something you guys would appreciate? Is it something I would appreciate? Maybe most importantly, is it something the choir would appreciate? You better get the choir on your side day one. This is what I'm saying. Right? You we want to believe, we're like, okay, Holy Spirit, take us over. You take the wheel, as uh Carrie Underwood might say to Jesus and hopefully the Holy Spirit, right? We'd like to think we're we're we'd feel really, really good about that, but I don't know, we might get a little suspicious, right? We do this. We do this, we trust that the Holy Spirit is with us and wants to be with us as long as it matches our sense of who that presence is supposed to be. Right, then we get suspicious afterwards if we don't hear what we expect the Holy Spirit to say or what God would say, then we get a little more suspicious.

Discernment, Deal Breakers, And Canceling

Pastor Darren 8:50

Now, again, to be fair, it's probably a good idea to be a little bit suspicious, a little bit cynical or uh circumspect. If somebody is saying they've got a message from God and they want to preach this message of God, we probably with some discernment ought to listen and not to just assume that everybody who says they have this message from God uh is really in that right spirit. But at the same time, how often is it that we kind of uh inhibit that spirit with our cynicism, our discernment? We're really good these days at doing what what are the what here I'm gonna what are the young people call it? The young people call it the canceling? Or canceling? We're really good with the canceling, right? Right? We'll we'll roll with it, especially in today's world. We can be grooving with something or with someone, and everything's there, the spirit is strong, and then they say that thing. Right? They say it that wrong thing, and we're out. We're done. What's the wrong thing? I don't know. But we all have them, do we not? That thing that is a deal breaker that you have set for yourself, and if that deal is broken and we hit it, it's out, and we are gone. And we totally forget that there were good things in play before the thing the deal breaker. We were grooving in Christian terms, the spirit was moving and we were into it. For um for the people, the Christians that we are looking to be, we are called to let the the spirit be unbound in our lives.

Looking For The Spirit Unbound

Pastor Darren 11:16

We we want that to be true in our lives. But there's times we don't give that spirit much room, isn't there? It's such a large part of why any of us is here. We're seeking community, yes, but we also want this positive context for life. We want hope, we want inspiration to live a holy life. In short, we want to be filled with the spirit. We want it to live unbound in our lives. But it's often we give the Holy Spirit such little room to work with. I started looking for examples of the spirit f just running amok in the world. Unbound! And I found this video. It's on a YouTube channel called Upworthy. Have you found Upworthy yet? Some of you. I hear mumblings. Yeah, Nancy. It's this channel, I guess you'd say, on YouTube that's dedicated to positive stories of humanity. Seems pretty simple and straightforward, but how often do we really, really need positive stories about humanity? So this one, it's been called the most compassionate pizza place in Philadelphia. So I'm

A Pizza Wall Of Paid Slices

Pastor Darren 12:58

e is the video ready? Let's go ahead and play it.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

So it really sucks. But at least I know I can look forward to 11 o'clock when I know I can get some fresh hot pizza.

SPEAKER_07 13:32

The first day the paid forward program kind of started was when a gentleman walked in and he asked if a homeless person ever came in short, and he offered to pre-purchase a slice of pizza for the next homeless person. So he gave me a dollar. I ran out, got posted notes, put one up on a wall behind the register, told more people about it. Eventually, a couple days later, a homeless person came in, had like 65 cents on him, and we told him to just keep the change. It was already paid for. He redeemed one of the pre-purchased slices. So uh now we've given away almost 10,000 slices of pizza.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

You know, welcome I feel like you know, like I almost like I try to donate at least like five dollars a week. You know, and it's so funny because today I left my wallet and everything home, and I was I have 78 cents in my pocket, and I just came out like, okay, don't worry about it. And that's a really great feeling. So I can imagine how the homeless people feel. Um, it's just a great thing. And the pizza is good. I'm from New York, so you know I know what pizza is.

SPEAKER_07 14:37

I just worked at a desk job in New York. You know, I showed up every morning, did some computer work, and then, you know, went home. Pretty regular stuff. I wanted to kind of do something new. I saw the success of the the dollar pizza stores throughout uh New York. So I thought I'd I'd open this place up and uh try my hand at it.

SPEAKER_04 14:57

I've been three years off the streets. I was seven years homeless myself as a as a veteran, you know, and I finally got myself out of the rug. I got myself an income and I wouldn't pay food, you know?

SPEAKER_07 15:14

Oh, just yesterday there was a guy that came in, he'd been homeless for like eight months, and I hadn't seen him for like three months. And I'm like, yo, where you been at? He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm I'm working now. Figured I'd I'd buy slice for someone else. I was like, that was awesome. Just a couple days prior, I had been like, man, I hope that guy's okay. And it turns out, you know, he's killing it.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

We don't always have a chance to come in and get fresh food whenever we can. And for people to donate money and, you know, put slice to the pizza for us, but they really made a change in Philadelphia.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

In a city with poverty rate that is higher than all other big cities comparable to it, to see such a show of compassion and and brotherly love is is really inspiring.

SPEAKER_07 16:12

I think it's pretty cool how powerful something this kind of small and simple can be.

What Compassion Gives The Giver Too

Pastor Darren 16:21

Yeah. Kinda cool, huh? Hey Steve, there's good people in Philly. Huh? Are you surprised? Yeah, how that's great, right? I think of all the good that was happening there. The simple stuff, the hungry are getting fed, which is cool. The under-resourced are getting respect, are getting shown that there's love in this world, maybe the kind of love that might help them get back on their feet. Here's another key part of what's going on there that I always like to mention. Others are getting a chance to help. We forget that that is a gift to be able to be somebody who offers godly love to other folks. That is a gift that we are given in this world and the feeling that gets from helping others. Finally, another good a city is getting a chance to see grace in this world modeled. You get to see what it looks like, to see that it is true and that it is real in the hearts of people. But where else could we have gone with that video? Are we really helping people who need to figure it out by giving them food? The problem of homelessness is difficult, maybe impossible to fix. Intellectually, maybe there's a place for this kind of conversation, but what do we have to sacrifice in order to have that conversation? I would argue it's an experience of the spirit. When we go there, especially when we go there right away, we miss the work of the spirit right in front of us. We miss the chance to be nourished and inspired by people who are sharing the love of God with the unfortunate in our world. We miss the chance to be assured of God, God's presence, God's grace, God's love not only for the unfortunate, but God's unconditional love for us in our own brokenness. We can make the mistake of waiting for the Holy Spirit to come to us with flames in order that we might open our hearts and believe and listen and maybe be inspired, but we can make another mistake, and that is in missing the presence of the Holy Spirit when that spirit comes, when that presence is right around us.

Practising Openness Throughout Pentecost Season

Pastor Darren 19:39

Engaging the Holy Spirit, which is always around us, that is a faith discipline. That is something we have to work at. We have to be intentional about. And having that spirit be unbound in our lives, it it takes work. An intentional openness to the work of the spirit in and around us. How often are we looking intentionally for this presence around us? Richard Rohr, who uh shares that daily devotion that I've invited all of y'all in the email to join me in, he would say that the Holy Spirit is everywhere and in everything. Maybe we should get to looking. Pentecost is a long, long season. Six months until the end of November. Let's get busy looking for that presence. I know.