What does Tribe teach about surrendering to jesus?
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 surrendering to Jesus is grounded in a frank assessment of what a person is actually surrendering from. Brian Hunter frames it through the image of a Thunderdome: every time someone steps into that arena with Jesus, one of them walks out. Either the person wins and Jesus loses influence in their life, or they die to themselves and Jesus leads. Surrendering, in this framing, is not a one-time transaction but an ongoing contest of the will.
The December 2024 teaching from Isaiah 9 pressed even harder on why surrender is necessary in the first place. Brian drew on Paul's encounter on the road to Damascus to make the point that the biggest barrier to surrendering to Jesus is often a person's confidence that they can already see clearly. He said plainly, "For anyone that has not surrendered their life to Jesus, the most compassionate thing I can tell you is that you are blind, and you don't even know it." The point was not condemnation. Brian went on to say, "Right in the midst of your greatest, deepest darkness, God the Father, out of his great love, says that is right where I want to put my light." Surrender, then, begins with accepting the diagnosis so that the cure can be received.
The Leviticus series added a dimension that shapes how Tribe understands what surrendering actually costs and what it is worth. The blood sacrifice described in Leviticus 3 is not about appeasing an angry God who needs to be held back. Brian argued that blood is God's own provision for intimacy with him. Through the laying on of hands, the worshiper's life becomes bound up in the animal that qualifies to enter God's presence. That pattern points forward to Jesus, which means surrendering to him is not capitulating to a threat but accepting an invitation into the kind of closeness with God that a person cannot reach on their own terms.
Taught from Isaiah 9:1-7 · Leviticus 3:1-17 · Leviticus 17:11 · Psalm 15 · 1 John 4:9-10
The passage taught · 1 John 4:9-10
9 By this God’s love was revealed in us, that God has sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- March 2, 2025 The Blood Bridges the Gap Brian Hunter walks through Leviticus 3 to show that God designed blood sacrifice not to manage his anger, but to draw people into genuine closeness with him.
- December 23, 2024 A Government That Will Never End Brian Hunter walks through Isaiah 9 verse by verse, asking whether each prophecy is past, present, or still coming, and why it matters this Christmas.