What does Tribe teach about fear and hopelessness?
Drawn from the message 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 fear and hopelessness starts with an honest acknowledgment that the darkness people feel is real. Brian preached from Isaiah 9:1-2 on the image of a great light breaking into deep darkness, and he did not minimize what that darkness actually costs people. Drawing on the Exodus plague of thick, tangible darkness that settled over Egypt for three days, he described what deep darkness reliably does to human beings: it immobilizes them. As Brian put it, "The tendency when darkness rolls over the land is to cause people to become immobilized. They retreat. They withdraw. They disengage." That pattern, he said, is visible now in the erosion of trust in institutions, geopolitical pressure, information collapse, and the quiet confusion in individual hearts that makes it easier to pull back than to keep going.
The teaching does not leave people there. Brian moved to John 8:12, where Jesus says plainly that following him means you no longer have to walk in darkness, because he is the light that leads to life. Brian noted that even when the light is present, walking in darkness remains a choice, which means hopelessness is not inevitable. And he held out something wider than personal relief: the darkness that feels overwhelming is, in a real sense, the very condition that makes the light most visible. Brian says, "As this present age gets darker and darker, all it does is cause the illumination of the beauty of Emmanuel, God with us, to shine all the brighter."
The practical weight of the message fell on the call in Matthew 5 for the church itself to be that light to people around them. Fear and withdrawal are understandable responses to a dark moment, but Brian's teaching pushes toward the opposite: engagement, presence, and carrying hope outward to people who are themselves immobilized by the darkness.
Taught from Isaiah 9:1-2 · John 8:12 · Exodus 10:21-23 · Matthew 5:14-16 · Romans 15:13
“As this present age gets darker and darker, all it does is cause the illumination of the beauty of Emmanuel, God with us, to shine all the brighter.”
From A Great Light in the Land of Deep Darkness
The passage taught · Exodus 10:21-23
21 Yahweh said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward the sky, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.”
22 Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days.
23 They didn’t see one another, and nobody rose from his place for three days; but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- December 18, 2023 A Great Light in the Land of Deep Darkness A Wyoming pastor traces the "light of the world" from Isaiah's prophecy through the Exodus plagues to Jesus, asking what that light demands of us now.