The Hook That Will Not Fail You

In one paragraph

This message was part of Tribe's ongoing series "Hanging Your Hat on God's Truth," preached outdoors at a park in Jackson Hole. Brian used a passage from Isaiah 22 about a palace gatekeeper being replaced, and the image of a peg driven firmly into a wall, to ask where each person has hung the hat of their deepest beliefs. The central question was whether the hooks we trust are strong enough to...

Read together

1. Isaiah 22:15-25 primary text read aloud and expounded throughout the sermon as the basis for the 'hook on the wall' analogy
2. John 1:1 quoted to establish that the Word was God and was with God
3. John 1:14 referenced to show the Word becoming flesh and moving into the neighborhood
4. 1 John 4:8 cited to support the claim that God's predominant attribute is love

What was said

• Take an honest look at what you are actually trusting for meaning and purpose in your life, and ask yourself whether that hook can bear the weight.
• If you have never seriously considered the claims Jesus made about himself, read one of the gospel accounts this week and let his own words be the starting point.
• If you walked away from faith at some point and have been running your own life since, talk to God this week in plain language and tell him you want to hand that back to him.
• Find one person in your life who does not know Jesus and invite them to church, the way Brian once tricked his girlfriend into going, trusting that God can do the rest.
• Spend some time outside this week and, instead of stopping at the beauty of the mountains, let it point you toward the one who made them.

Talk about it

1. Brian talked about people hanging their hat on whoever presents the most compelling narrative, whether that narrative is right or wrong. Where have you noticed that pattern in your own life, and what made a particular narrative feel convincing to you at the time?
2. Brian said that worshiping creation falls short because it has no personhood and cannot fulfill the deep relational longings we are built with. Do you agree with that, and have you ever tried to fill that relational need with something that ultimately could not hold the weight?
3. Brian laid out three possibilities about Jesus: liar, lunatic, or Lord. Where did you land on that question before you came to faith, or where are you still working through it?
4. Brian shared that he got tricked into going to church and that his faith journey started, in his words, in sin in that little condo. What does his story tell you about how God tends to work, and how does that compare to what you assumed a person's path to faith was supposed to look like?
5. Brian closed by inviting people to hang the hat of their eternal destiny on Jesus rather than on themselves. What is one area of your life right now where you have quietly taken that hat back and put yourself in charge again?