Unbreakable Week 5： Surrounded by Vandals, Part 2

In one paragraph

This was week five of the Unbreakable series, continuing Tribe's ongoing look at Israel, God's faithfulness to that people, and how Christians fit into that story. Brian picked up the thread of Joseph and his brothers in Genesis 37 to frame a broader historical survey of what he called the vandalism committed against Israel across thousands of years. He closed by putting two big questions on the...

Read together

1. Matthew 18:20 reassurance that Christ is present wherever two or more are gathered, even when his presence is not felt
2. Psalms 94:14 God will not reject or abandon his special possession, Israel
3. Psalms 135:4 God has chosen Jacob and Israel as his own special treasure
4. Genesis 37:1-20 Joseph sent to find his brothers, recognized in the distance, brothers plot to kill him and throw him in a cistern
5. Romans Paul's teaching that Christians and believers are called Israel
6. Galatians 3 God says saints and believers are Israel, grafted into his family

What was said

• Text Brian your questions or reactions about Israel this week so the conversation from Sunday can keep going.
• If you have not started the Pause app yet, download it and try one morning and one evening session this week.
• Fill out a prayer request card and drop it in the wooden box at the back so the staff can pray over it at their next meeting.
• Sit with Psalm 94:14 and Psalm 135:4 this week and let them shape how you think about God's faithfulness, both to Israel and to you.
• Take a few minutes this week to ask the Holy Spirit whether there is an area of your life where you have been the vandal, and if so, bring that honestly before him.

Talk about it

1. Brian talked about the promises of God being guaranteed but not automatic, and described a partnership or dance that God invites us into. What does that partnership look like in your own experience, and where have you found it hardest to hold on to a promise?
2. Brian used a three-circle Venn diagram to work through the question of who Israel is, covering genealogical descent, covenantal faithfulness, and sovereign election. Which of those three felt most natural to you growing up, and did anything in that discussion shift how you think about it?
3. Brian described antisemitism as a form of cultural and moral vandalism driven by resentment toward something that endures and resists erasure. Do you think that framing helps explain the surge in anti-Jewish attacks that followed October 7, and where does it fall short for you?
4. The story of Joseph wearing his special robe out to the fields was used to illustrate how something given as a mark of favor can become the very thing that provokes hostility. Have you ever seen favor on your own life, or someone else's, draw that kind of reaction?
5. At the close of the sermon Brian asked the congregation to sit with two questions: what is the root of this long history of vandalism against Israel, and where is it heading? Which of those two questions feels more urgent to you, and why?