What does Tribe teach about fighting your battles?
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 fighting your battles starts with a question Brian puts directly to the room: are you trying to fight in someone else's armor? Working through 1 Samuel 17, Brian focused the conversation on the moment David tries on Saul's armor, takes a step or two, and sets it aside, walking out to face Goliath with a sling and five smooth stones. The point was not that David was reckless or underprepared. It was that David had already been trained by God, first against a lion, then against a bear, long before Goliath ever appeared. Brian says, "The day of battle is not the time to train for battle." The preparation God gives you for your specific fight happens before you ever see the giant.
The teaching also pressed on whose terms the battle gets fought on. Brian noted that Goliath's challenge of single combat was itself a tactic, meant to pull Israel into fighting the way the Philistines wanted to fight. David came with a sling precisely because that kept the fight at a distance, on ground where God had already trained him. David named the Lord before he moved a step, and he ran toward Goliath rather than walking or pulling back. The whole thread Brian kept drawing the room back to was that David knew whose hand his life was in, and that knowledge is what let him fight on God's terms instead of Goliath's.
Brian also brought this home personally. Reflecting on a debrief after a service held at the Virginian Saloon, he described stepping back toward a more conventional service format and said, "I walked away from last Sunday's service feeling like David in Saul's armor. It just didn't quite fit me very well." The invitation for the room was the same one David faced: trust the preparation God has already given you, fight with what he has actually placed in your hand, and do not put on someone else's armor just because it looks more suited to the battle in front of you.
Taught from 1 Samuel 17:32-51 · 1 Samuel 17:38-40 · 2 Corinthians 10
“The day of battle is not the time to train for battle.”
From Fighting in Sauls Armor
The passage taught · 1 Samuel 17:32-51
32 David said to Saul, “Let no man’s heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.”
33 Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth.”
34 David said to Saul, “Your servant was keeping his father’s sheep; and when a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb out of the flock,
35 I went out after him, and struck him, and rescued it out of his mouth. When he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and struck him, and killed him.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- May 22, 2023 Fighting in Sauls Armor Brian Hunter walks through 1 Samuel 17 and asks why so many people try to fight their real battles wearing armor that was never made for them.