What does Tribe teach about denying yourself?
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 denying yourself starts with a simple but honest diagnosis: a full person has no room. Proverbs 27:7 sits at the center of this, with the observation that a person who is full refuses honey, but bitter food tastes sweet to the hungry. The point is not that self-denial is a spiritual achievement in itself, but that appetite shapes where the heart settles. If there is no hunger, there is no room for what God wants to put in.
Joy, who taught on this in the weeks leading into Tribe's twenty-one-day prayer focus, drew a careful line between self-denial in a general sense and fasting in particular. She argued that fasting is not a fringe practice for elite Christians but something Jesus assumed all his followers would do. In Matthew 6 he does not say 'if you fast' but 'when you fast,' placing it alongside prayer and giving as an expected rhythm. She described fasting as an act of worship, saying, 'Our motive in fasting is always to offer ourselves to God. It is an act of worship.' The body, she taught from Romans 12:1, is the whole person, and physically feeling the sacrifice is part of what makes the practice so direct.
Pastor Brian picked up the same thread from Matthew 6, pointing out that wherever a person stores treasure is where the heart tends to follow, not the reverse. The heart follows appetite. Self-denial, then, is a way of redirecting that appetite toward what God is saying, because a hungry heart has room to receive it. Brian also pressed on a passage in John 8 where Jesus is not correcting obvious opponents but people who believed in him and were following him. Even among those who were with Jesus, there was no room in their hearts for what he wanted to say. Making room, through honest self-denial, is how that changes.
Taught from Proverbs 27:7 · Matthew 6:16-18 · Matthew 6:19-21 · Romans 12:1 · John 8:31-43
“Jesus is always reliable, but he is always unpredictable.”
From Make Room in Your Heart
The passage taught · 1 Samuel 16:7-12
7 But Yahweh said to Samuel, “Don’t look on his face, or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for I don’t see as man sees. For man looks at the outward appearance, but Yahweh looks at the heart.”
8 Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Yahweh has not chosen this one, either.”
9 Then Jesse made Shammah to pass by. He said, “Yahweh has not chosen this one, either.”
10 Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel. Samuel said to Jesse, “Yahweh has not chosen these.”
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- September 4, 2023 Make Room in Your Heart Brian Hunter walks Tribe Church through John 8 and Matthew 6 as he launches a 21-day fast for Israel, asking the congregation to make room in their hearts for what God cares about.
- August 28, 2023 When You Fast Joy Hunter teaches Tribe fam why fasting matters, what it does to body and soul, and how it connects to 21 days of prayer for Israel.