What does Tribe teach about calling and purpose?
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 calling and purpose begins with a striking image: God has already written a book with your name on the spine, its pages filled with everything He has planned for your life. Brian Hunter draws this from Psalm 139:16 and Ephesians 2:10, where Paul calls believers God's 'masterpiece,' a word whose Greek root, 'poema,' gives us the English word poem. The point is not that you invent your purpose, but that you discover and align yourself with one that has already been written. Reward at the Bema Seat of Christ, Brian explains, is not a courtroom verdict but something closer to a winner's podium, and it is proportional to how closely a person's life lined up with what God had already planned.
That calling is meant to be carried out in God's strength, not your own. Brian uses Moses as the clearest example: the same calling to liberate Israel, run in the flesh, produced one dead Egyptian and zero freed slaves; run in the Spirit, forty years later, it freed over a million people. The gifts and talents God gives each person are the tools for the work, and keeping those tools sharp matters. A dull axe wears the worker out and slows everything down. The believer's job is to stay aligned with the Spirit so the gift operates at full capacity, because the same gift running on the old nature produces confusion and darkness, while running on the Spirit it produces clarity, hope, and real fruit.
Salvation is the starting line, not the finish line. Brian is careful to separate reward from salvation: the Protestant church has rightly insisted that salvation cannot be earned, but in doing so has largely stopped preaching about reward, which is real, distinct, and tied to works. As Brian puts it, 'You don't work to be saved. You work because you're saved. And that work earns you reward.' Free will means each person chooses how closely they follow the plan God wrote, and what gets built from gold will remain while what gets built from wood, hay, and straw will burn. The summary he keeps returning to is this: 'Every moment matters when forever is your measure.'
Taught from Psalm 139:16 · Ephesians 2:10 · 2 John 1:8 · Ecclesiastes 10:10 · Ephesians 1:18-19
The passage taught · 1 Kings 5:1-9
1 Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon; for he had heard that they had anointed him king in the place of his father, and Hiram had always loved David.
2 Solomon sent to Hiram, saying,
3 “You know that David my father could not build a house for the name of Yahweh his God because of the wars which were around him on every side, until Yahweh put his enemies under the soles of his feet.
4 But now Yahweh my God has given me rest on every side. There is no enemy and no evil occurrence.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- May 3, 2026 Work Smarter, Not Harder A Wyoming pastor draws on 1 Kings 5 to explore what it means to use your God-given gifts in the Spirit rather than the flesh, and why that difference changes everything.
- September 15, 2025 God's Masterpiece Brian Hunter preaches on eternal reward, free will, and living out your calling, then leads Tribe Church in communion after reflecting on the murder of Charlie Kirk.
- September 14, 2025 Remembering Charlie Kirk A Jackson Hole congregation gathers to grieve the loss of Charlie Kirk, share communion as a family, and reflect on living faithfully for a full eternal reward.