What does Tribe teach about finding god in hard times?
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 finding God in hard times starts with a simple but disorienting observation: the most significant invitations to encounter God tend to arrive inside disruption, not comfort. Brian Hunter has worked through this idea from Exodus 24:7-11, where Moses, Aaron, and seventy elders made a serious physical climb up Mount Sinai and then sat down to share a meal in the presence of God. The hike itself, roughly twice the vertical gain of Snow King, was not incidental. The inconvenience was part of the invitation. The good thing did not come after the hard thing. It came inside it.
Brian anchors the same pattern in Psalm 23:5, "You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies." He has spent real time on the phrase "in the presence of my enemies," pointing out that the feast, the anointing, and the overflowing cup are genuine promises, but the verse does not locate them in a comfortable season. They arrive alongside the enemies. He draws the same thread through Daniel 3, where Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego only met a fourth man in the furnace because they were thrown in, and through Acts 27, where Paul received an angelic visitation while a Mediterranean storm was tearing the ship apart. The pattern across Scripture, Brian says, is consistent enough to be taken seriously as a way God actually works.
What this adds up to, in the teaching at Tribe, is that Christian maturity means becoming comfortable with discomfort, not in a grim or defeated way, but because resisting the hard place means missing the encounter inside it. Brian puts it plainly: "Look for the invitation in the midst of disruption." The suffering is not a sign God has withdrawn. It is often the precise location where he shows up.
Taught from Exodus 24:7-11 · Psalms 23:5 · Daniel 3 · Acts 27 · John 16:33
“The only thing that'll make you draw near to God and keep you away from sin is suffering.”
From The Feast on the Mountain
The passage taught · Acts 27
1 When it was determined that we should sail for Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners to a centurion named Julius, of the Augustan band.
2 Embarking in a ship of Adramyttium, which was about to sail to places on the coast of Asia, we put to sea; Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, being with us.
3 The next day, we touched at Sidon. Julius treated Paul kindly, and gave him permission to go to his friends and refresh himself.
4 Putting to sea from there, we sailed under the lee of Cyprus, because the winds were contrary.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- November 10, 2025 The Feast on the Mountain Brian Hunter walks through Exodus 24, where 70 elders hiked Mount Sinai to dine with God, and draws out a simple challenge: look for God's invitation inside life's disruptions.
- November 9, 2025 Meal on the Mountain A sermon from Tribe Church in Jackson Hole exploring Exodus 24, where 70 elders dined with God on Sinai, and what it means to find God in life's disruptions.