What does Tribe teach about freedom from past?
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 freedom from the past is built around a single moment in John 11: Jesus raising Lazarus and then telling the crowd to unwrap him and let him go. Brian walks through why that detail matters. Grave clothes went onto Lazarus after he died, not before, because they would have been completely out of place on a living person. As Brian puts it, "Only dead people belong in grave clothes." The whole point is that anyone who has invited Jesus into their heart is not dead anymore, and the old shame, condemnation, and identity of failure are grave clothes that simply do not belong.
Brian is careful to say that when someone comes to faith, the new creation described in 2 Corinthians 5:17 happens in the spirit and the heart, but the mind does not get instantly rewritten. Romans 12:2 makes clear that the mind has to be renewed, and that is ongoing work. The enemy and the world know this, and they use it. They keep trying to dress people back up in what they already walked out of, whispering that someone is a failure, has gone too far, or is damaged goods. Brian names those as grave clothes, and says they have no claim on someone who is already alive in Christ.
The practical answer Brian points to comes from Romans 6, where Paul calls believers to consider themselves dead to sin and alive to God. The word consider is deliberate. It is the act of speaking truth over yourself, refusing to agree with what the enemy says, and choosing to see yourself the way God sees you. Brian also drew on the picture in Revelation 19 of the righteousness believers are given as a new wardrobe, and described Christians as people with access to a dimension beyond the purely physical, which is why walking by faith rather than by sight is not just a phrase but a real posture to live from.
Taught from John 11:11-44 · 2 Corinthians 5:17 · Romans 6:6-11 · Romans 12:2 · Revelation 19:8
“Only dead people belong in grave clothes.”
From Unwrapped: Finding Freedom Outside the Tomb
The passage taught · 2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- April 29, 2024 Unwrapped: Finding Freedom Outside the Tomb A Wyoming pastor walks through John 11, asking why alive people keep wearing grave clothes, and inviting the congregation to step out of old patterns and shame.
- April 28, 2024 Unwrapped: Finding Freedom Outside of the Tomb A pastor and congregation in Jackson Hole explore John 11 and ask why so many Christians who have been made new still walk around wrapped in the grave clothes of guilt and shame.