"We Didn't Start the Fire" (May 24, 2026 Sermon)

Send us Fan MailFire spreads, rules tighten, and Moses refuses to panic.We’re preaching Pentecost through a story many people skip: Numbers 11 and the unexpected prophets Eldad and Medad. Moses is exhausted from carrying the weight of leadership in the wilderness, so God shares the Spirit with seventy elders to help guide the people. It’s orderly, practical, and honestly pretty reasonable. Then the Spirit does what the Spirit does and lands on two men who aren’t even inside the tent of meeting.That’s where the tension hits. Joshua sees Spirit-led leadership happening “out of bounds” and blurts out the line that still echoes through church history: “My lord Moses, stop them.” We sit with how familiar that reflex is, from who gets to preach to who gets heard, who gets trusted, and who gets told to slow down. We also name the difference between life-giving process and gatekeeping that turns a tent into a wall, because walls are terrible conductors of the Holy Spirit.Moses answers with both clarity and hope: “Are you jealous for my sake?” and “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets.” That becomes our Pentecost takeaway: we didn’t start the fire of the Spirit, and we were never meant to contain it. If you’re hungry for a sermon about spiritual gifts, church leadership, inclusion, and the wild freedom of the Holy Spirit, press play, then subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find it.Follow us on Instagram @guilfordparkpresbyterianchurchFollow us on Facebook @guilfordparkpcFollow us on TikTok @guilfordparkpreschurchWebsite:  www.guilfordpark.org