What does Tribe teach about finding direction?
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 finding direction starts with an honest look at how most people actually live. Pastor Brian taught from Isaiah 57:18-19, where God promises healing, guidance, and peace to his people, and pointed out that the list includes direction as something God makes available not because of anything his people have done, but because of who he is. The congregation noted that God says 'I will' without specifying when or how, and Brian named that as a covenant promise rooted in God's character, not in our performance. That matters for anyone waiting on direction, because it means the waiting is not a sign that God has forgotten or that something has gone wrong.
The harder teaching is about what we do while we are still waiting. Brian described the common pattern, feeling like praise or trust should follow once the answer arrives, as the immature starting point God wants to move us past. He held up Job, who was seeing none of what was promised and yet said he would put his hope in the Lord anyway, and Habakkuk, who listed everything that had failed and then declared he would still rejoice. The picture Brian drew was of someone jumping for joy not because the answer had come, but because they were confident it was coming. As Brian put it, the posture is: "He ain't done it yet, but he gonna."
One person in the room, Lee, named the real friction in all of this, that praising God before you feel like it can feel hypocritical. Brian took that seriously and did not brush past it. His answer was that feelings are real and true, but they do not have to sit in the driver's seat. The maturity the passages are pointing toward has faith leading, with the mouth and emotions following behind rather than the other way around. Brian put it plainly: "Those are your feelings. They're real. They're true. But the greater truth is, I am going to praise the Lord even if I feel hypocritical." For anyone waiting on direction right now, that is the ground Tribe keeps coming back to: trust comes before the answer, not after it.
Taught from Isaiah 57:18-19 · Habakkuk 3:16-19 · Job 13:15 · Psalm 23 · Philippians 4:4
“Though he slay me, yet will I praise him.”
From His Praise on Our Lips
The passage taught · Habakkuk 3:16-19
16 I heard, and my body trembled. My lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness enters into my bones, and I tremble in my place, because I must wait quietly for the day of trouble, for the coming up of the people who invade us.
17 For though the fig tree doesn’t flourish, nor fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food; the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls:
18 yet I will rejoice in Yahweh. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
19 Yahweh, the Lord, is my strength. He makes my feet like deer’s feet, and enables me to go in high places. For the music director, on my stringed instruments.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- February 13, 2023 His Praise on Our Lips Brian Hunter walks through Isaiah 57 and challenges his church to let praise lead faith, not follow it, even before God's promises show up in real life.