What does Tribe teach about faith over feelings?
Drawn from the message 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 faith over feelings starts with a straightforward observation: most people wait to feel something before they praise God. Pastor Brian described this as the immature pattern, and was careful to say that immaturity is not a condemnation, only a starting point God wants to move us past. The natural assumption is that healing, peace, or direction come first, and praise follows as a response. The messages at Tribe push against that order.
Pastor Brian used Job and Habakkuk to show what a different posture looks like. Job, who was seeing none of God's promises fulfilled around him, still said he would put his hope in the Lord. Habakkuk lists everything that has failed and then says yet he will rejoice. Brian pointed out that this word for rejoice carries in the Hebrew a sense of jubilant, leaping celebration, the image of someone jumping for joy not because the answer has arrived but because they are confident it is coming. To make the point concrete, he used a train analogy: most people run their lives with emotions as the engine and their words following behind. The maturity these passages are pointing toward has faith as the engine instead.
When the question of feelings came up directly, Brian took it seriously rather than brushing it aside. Someone in the room named how it can feel hypocritical to praise God when you do not feel like it. Brian's answer was that the feeling is real and it is true, but it is not the whole truth. As he put it, "Those are your feelings. They're real. They're true. But the greater truth is, I am going to praise the Lord even if I feel hypocritical." The God described in Isaiah 57 says "I will" without specifying when or how, and that covenant stands on who God is, not on what his people have done to deserve it. Praise, in this teaching, is not a reward for answered prayer. It is a declaration made before the answer comes.
Taught from Habakkuk 3:16-19 · Isaiah 57:18-19 · Job 13:15 · Isaiah 49:8 · Philippians 4:4
“Though he slay me, yet will I praise him.”
From His Praise on Our Lips
The passage taught · Habakkuk 3:16-19
16 I heard, and my body trembled. My lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness enters into my bones, and I tremble in my place, because I must wait quietly for the day of trouble, for the coming up of the people who invade us.
17 For though the fig tree doesn’t flourish, nor fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food; the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls:
18 yet I will rejoice in Yahweh. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
19 Yahweh, the Lord, is my strength. He makes my feet like deer’s feet, and enables me to go in high places. For the music director, on my stringed instruments.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- February 13, 2023 His Praise on Our Lips Brian Hunter walks through Isaiah 57 and challenges his church to let praise lead faith, not follow it, even before God's promises show up in real life.