What does Tribe teach about fear and hopelessness?
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 fear and hopelessness begins with an honest look at what darkness actually does to people. Brian drew on the Exodus plague of thick darkness, where the result was not conflict or rebellion but paralysis. People stopped moving. They withdrew and stayed where they were. He was direct that the same thing is happening now, as trust in institutions erodes, geopolitical pressures build, and the flood of contradictory information makes disengaging feel easier than acting. As Brian put it, "The tendency when darkness rolls over the land is to cause people to become immobilized. They retreat. They withdraw. They disengage."
The teaching does not stop at naming the problem. Brian moved to Isaiah 9:1-2 and then to Jesus' own words in John 8:12, where the light of the world makes a specific promise to anyone who follows Him: you will not have to walk in darkness. Brian pointed out the quiet weight of that verse, that walking in darkness remains an option even when the light is fully present. Fear and hopelessness, in this teaching, are not caused by the absence of light but by failing to follow the One who is the light.
What Brian described is not a reason for despair but a reason for confidence. He said, "As this present age gets darker and darker, all it does is cause the illumination of the beauty of Emmanuel, God with us, to shine all the brighter." The church's call, drawn from Matthew 5, is to carry that light outward rather than retreat inward. The growing darkness of the moment, far from being a reason to shrink back, is the very condition that makes the light most visible.
Taught from Isaiah 9:1-2 · John 8:12 · Exodus 10:21-23 · Matthew 5:14-16 · Romans 15:13
“As this present age gets darker and darker, all it does is cause the illumination of the beauty of Emmanuel, God with us, to shine all the brighter.”
From A Great Light in the Land of Deep Darkness
The passage taught · Exodus 10:21-23
21 Yahweh said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward the sky, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.”
22 Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days.
23 They didn’t see one another, and nobody rose from his place for three days; but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- December 18, 2023 A Great Light in the Land of Deep Darkness A Wyoming pastor traces the "light of the world" from Isaiah's prophecy through the Exodus plagues to Jesus, asking what that light demands of us now.