What does Tribe teach about hope?

At Tribe, the teaching on hope starts with a very particular definition. Brian Hunter has walked the congregation through the Hebrew behind the phrase 'put your hope in the Lord' in Psalm 37:34, and what he found there is not a feeling but an action. The word pictures strands of rope being twisted and braided together, the way personal faith is woven together with God's promises. Brian illustrated it with the way a ski lift haul line is spliced by certified experts, a bond nearly impossible to detect with the naked eye once it is done. Real hope, on that reading, is not wishful thinking anchored in circumstances. It is what happens when a person's trust and God's proven faithfulness are bound to each other.

The teaching presses on the gap between a promise being guaranteed and a promise being automatic. Brian draws on the story of Zechariah, who had prayed for a child for years and had quietly given up on the promise by the time the angel arrived to remind him of it. The pattern Brian draws from that is consistent: God does not forget his promises, but we can. He also points to Abraham and Sarah, where God gave Abram the ability to father a child but the child still required their participation. The promise was guaranteed, but it asked something of them. As Brian puts it, 'God's promises are always guaranteed, but they are not always automatic.' That partnership between what God does and what we do runs all the way through what Tribe teaches on this subject.

The other thread that runs through these messages is the patience hope requires. Brian has quoted Bill Johnson more than once on this: 'Sometimes it takes the Lord a long time to act suddenly.' He applies it not just to individuals but to Tribe as a church, pointing to years of looking for a permanent facility, a mandate to 'stay close' that felt frustratingly small for a room full of people who wanted something more obviously significant, and an unlikely building that came through a dying man's generosity. The teaching does not soften that tension. It names the frustration honestly and holds it alongside the conviction that traveling steadily along God's path, even when the path looks like washing cars and sanding floors, is itself an act of hope.

Taught from Psalm 37:34 · Hebrews 11:32-34 · Hebrews 12:1-2 · Psalm 119:114 · Romans 5:3-5 (approximate)