What does Tribe teach about belonging to god?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At Tribe, the teaching on belonging to God starts with a simple but weighty question: if you looked at the sole of the boot of your heart, whose name would be written there? Brian Hunter drew the image from Toy Story, where Andy's name is written on the bottom of every toy that belongs to him. The point Brian made was direct: God does not write his name on the boot of your heart until you surrender yourself into his hands, and when you do, that name is Yahweh, not a generic title but his proper name. That ownership is settled, personal, and deliberately hidden from the world, the way a parent sews a name tag into a child's jacket in a place that is not on display but is clearly intentional.
The messages in this series spent real time on what that mark looks like and how it works. The Holy Spirit, given at the moment of belief, is the seal and deposit described in Ephesians 1:13-14, the permanent signature of God on a life. Brian set this against the way the enemy marks a person, always from the outside, working through confusion and lies to deface what God built. Brian put it plainly: "You are God's unique poem. The stated goal of the enemy is to scribble and scratch that out." God moves in the opposite direction, not to flatten or erase what makes a person who they are, but to develop it. As Brian said, "If you belong to Yahweh, the optimal expression of his life is when you allow the Holy Spirit to express his life through you."
Three things the Holy Spirit does in a believer's life came out of these messages: he engraves, writing God's name on the heart in a way that failure and rebellion cannot finally erase; he enlightens, opening up scripture and experience so a person can grow in knowing who Jesus is; and he empowers, equipping each person to walk out the specific calling God placed on their life. The already-settled identity and the becoming-that-is-not-yet-finished both belong together, and the 1 John 3:1-3 passage holds that tension honestly. The congregation at Tribe is invited to sit with it rather than rush past it.
Taught from Ephesians 1:3-14 · 1 John 3:1-3 · Zephaniah 3:17 · Isaiah 49:16 · John 16:8
“Anybody or any person or any force that doesn't encourage you to be you very well could be a force of the enemy.”
From Sealed and Branded
The passage taught · Ephesians 1:3-14
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ;
4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and without defect before him in love;
5 having predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his desire,
6 to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely gave us favor in the Beloved,
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- July 28, 2025 Sealed and Branded Brian Hunter walks Tribe through Ephesians 1:13-14, exploring what it means to be sealed by the Holy Spirit and why that identity matters more than any label the world puts on you.
- July 27, 2025 His Name Your Boot: Week 2 A Jackson Hole pastor leads his congregation through Ephesians 1 to explore what it means to be sealed by the Holy Spirit and to live as God's own.
- July 20, 2025 His Name on Your Boot A Jackson Hole pastor walks through 1 John 3:1-3 and asks one question: whose name is written on the sole of your heart's boot?
Mentioned along the way
- December 9, 2024 A Warning About New Wine Brian Hunter warns that clinging to old mindsets when God pours out something new risks losing both the old and the new. A sermon on John 8 and wineskins.