What does Tribe teach about killing sin?
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 killing sin starts with a hard look at what Israel was told to do on the edge of the promised land. In Deuteronomy 7, Moses gave clear instructions: drive out the seven nations completely, destroy their altars, make no deals, show no mercy. The reasoning was protection, not cruelty. God had carried Israel through forty years of wilderness and did not want their eyes drifting toward foreign gods or foreign ways of life. Israel did not follow through. Tribe after tribe left the job unfinished, settled into a practical arrangement with the Canaanites, and walked straight into the thorn and snare God had warned about. That pattern of compromise is the frame Justin Waters used to address what it looks like when a believer does the same thing with sin.
Justin read from Ephesians 2 and asked the room to name the three things pulling a person toward walking in trespass: the world, the devil, and the flesh. Of those three, the flesh got the most attention. Galatians 5 describes the works of the flesh as evident and the fruit of the Spirit as something that sometimes has to be searched for. Romans 8 pressed further: to set the mind on the flesh is death, and the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God. Justin did not hold that at arm's length. He said those verses had described him too recently. He had shown up, served, said the right things, and still felt like he was living a double life because he was not submitted to God's law. He compared himself directly to Israel: given the chance to cut sin out, he had chosen instead to isolate and hide his heart from people who loved him.
The posture the teaching calls for is not casual avoidance but active, ruthless putting to death. Galatians 5 says those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, and that past tense matters: the victory is already secured. What remains is the willingness to stop coddling what God has already defeated. Justin put it plainly: "It's cost me way more to coddle and pamper my flesh than it has to crucify it." The teaching also held out the other side of that same truth. "God is gonna fight for us. We have to be really serious about cutting out these things that draw us away from him."
Taught from Deuteronomy 7:1-5 · Galatians 5:24-25 · Romans 8:5-8 · Ephesians 2:1-5 · Judges 2:1-3
“It's cost me way more to coddle and pamper my flesh than it has to crucify it.”
From Devoted to Destruction
The passage taught · 1 John 1:5-9
5 This is the message which we have heard from him and announce to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
6 If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and don’t tell the truth.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- April 15, 2024 Devoted to Destruction A guest speaker leads Tribe church through Deuteronomy, Galatians and Romans, calling believers to stop coddling sin and ruthlessly cut out whatever pulls them from God.
- April 14, 2024 Devoted to Destruction A guest speaker at a Wyoming church walks through Scripture on why followers of Jesus must fully destroy sinful patterns rather than make room for them.