What does Tribe teach about discernment?
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 discernment starts with a simple but demanding premise: your ability to recognize what God is doing is shaped entirely by how much time you have spent with Jesus. Joy Bhatt made this the center of two messages in the wineskins series, drawing on Matthew 12 to show that the disciples and the Pharisees had identical knowledge of the Torah, yet only the disciples could follow Jesus into something new. The difference was not education or spiritual giftedness. It was proximity. As Joy put it, "Your capacity to recognize and receive from the Holy Spirit is directly proportional to how much time you spend with Jesus."
That same thread runs through the story of Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20. When an overwhelming army advanced on Judah, Jehoshaphat did not reach for a military strategy. He called a fast, gathered the whole community, and prayed a prayer full of remembered history, holding God to what he had done before. The new thing God said to do, send the worship team out ahead of the army and do not fight at all, was the kind of instruction that only makes sense to someone already practiced in trusting an unconventional God. Joy connected this to the Hebrew word shema, pointing out that listening and obeying are two sides of the same word. You have not truly heard until you have acted.
Pastor Brian's earlier teaching on hearing God's voice reinforces the same point from a different angle. Using the image of a climber who can identify ropes by feel alone, he described discernment as a skill built through familiarity, not a talent some people are born with. The spiritual disciplines, time in Scripture, prayer, fasting, are not religious boxes to check. They are the accumulated hours that make it possible to recognize God's voice when something unfamiliar comes along, and to trust it rather than talk yourself out of it.
Taught from Matthew 12:1-14 · 2 Chronicles 20:1-24 · 2 Timothy 3:15-16 · 2 Peter 1:3-4 · Matthew 25
“Your capacity to recognize and receive from the Holy Spirit is directly proportional to how much time you spend with Jesus.”
From New Wineskins ｜ Joy Abad
The passage taught · 2 Chronicles 20:1-24
1 After this, the children of Moab, the children of Ammon, and with them some of the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle.
2 Then some came who told Jehoshaphat, saying, “A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea from Syria. Behold, they are in Hazazon Tamar” (that is, En Gedi).
3 Jehoshaphat was alarmed, and set himself to seek to Yahweh. He proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.
4 Judah gathered themselves together to seek help from Yahweh. They came out of all the cities of Judah to seek Yahweh.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- February 10, 2025 New Wineskins ｜ Joy Abad Joy Bhatt teaches Tribe Church on how time spent with Jesus shapes our ability to recognize and follow where God is moving, even when it looks unconventional.
- February 9, 2025 Being With Jesus Joy Bhatt teaches on what it means to spend time with Jesus, how that shapes our capacity to recognize God moving, and why discernment matters more than ever.
- June 25, 2023 Marked by His Word Brian Hunter walks through how God speaks through Scripture, why his promises are guaranteed but not automatic, and how to build the habit of hearing his voice.