What does Tribe teach about unanswered prayer?
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 unanswered prayer starts with a distinction Brian draws from Isaiah 62: the promises of God are not in question, but they are not passive either. As Brian puts it, "The promises of God are always guaranteed but they are not automatic." The watchmen posted on Jerusalem's walls in Isaiah 62 are told to give God no rest until he makes good on his word, and Brian reads that as a template, not just an ancient assignment. Persistent prayer is the work, and the two parables Jesus tells in Luke 11 and Luke 18 are his way of showing his own disciples the same thing.
One thread that came up in that same conversation was the temptation to shrink back from prayer out of a sense that our problems are too small or too burdensome to bring to God. Brian named that impulse directly: "If you think that you don't want to bother God with your problems, that's actually an issue of pride in your life." The teaching at Tribe treats that feeling not as humility but as something to push through, because persistent prayer assumes a God who is both willing and able to act.
Pastor Brian also acknowledged honestly that the timing of answers is not ours to manage. The line the congregation heard was that "Our prayers don't come with tracking numbers." That is not a counsel of despair but of faithfulness, the same faithfulness the woman in Matthew 15 showed when she kept pressing Jesus even after silence and a hard word. The thread connecting both messages is that persistence in prayer is itself an act of faith, and faith is what Jesus was looking for all along.
Taught from Isaiah 62:6-7 · Luke 18:1-8 · Luke 11:5-13 · Isaiah 62:1-12 · Matthew 15:21-28
“The promises of god are always guaranteed but they are not automatic.”
From The Power of Persistence in Prayer
The passage taught · Deuteronomy 13:1-5
1 If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you, and he gives you a sign or a wonder,
2 and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, “Let us go after other gods” (which you have not known) “and let us serve them”;
3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet, or to that dreamer of dreams; for Yahweh your God is testing you, to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
4 You shall walk after Yahweh your God, fear him, keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and you shall serve him, and cling to him.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- December 11, 2023 The Power of Persistence in Prayer Brian Hunter walks through Isaiah 62 and Luke 11 and 18 on persistent prayer, holding God to his word, and praying with shameless audacity until he answers.
Mentioned along the way
- August 23, 2026 You Can't Say That About Women, Jesus A Canaanite woman refuses to be dismissed, and Jesus calls it great faith. Brian Hunter looks at what Jesus really meant when he said things that would get him canceled.