What does Tribe teach about letting go of the past?
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 letting go of the past starts with a simple but hard observation: yesterday's grip on us is often stronger than we admit. In the January 2024 message drawn from Luke 24, Brian Hunter walked the congregation through two disciples who were walking away from Jerusalem describing Jesus entirely in past tense. Every verb was past tense. Their grief had frozen their picture of Jesus at the moment of the tomb, and they were rehearsing what had been instead of paying attention to what was happening right in front of them. Brian named that pattern plainly: when hope runs dry, the human tendency is to retreat toward comfort and check out. Jesus met them on the road anyway, but Brian noted that Jesus acted as if he would walk on past them, looking for hunger, waiting for an invitation. The call was direct: stop rehearsing what was and start paying attention to what Jesus is doing right now. As Brian put it, "Don't miss what is because you are stuck in the what was."
The April 2025 message from Leviticus 6 pressed the same point from a different angle. The priestly instruction to clear yesterday's ashes from the altar before adding fresh wood every morning became a picture of what any believer has to do with the previous day's failures and sin. Brian said it plainly: as Brian says, "Yesterday's ashes have no capacity to fuel today's fire." The mercy of God is new every morning, which means the past, whether it is guilt, disappointment, or a season that did not go the way you hoped, does not have to be carried into today. The ashes belong outside the camp, not piled back onto the altar.
Taken together, these two messages describe a consistent conviction at Tribe: clinging to the past, whether out of grief, shame, or the comfort of what is familiar, cuts a person off from what God is doing right now. The invitation in both messages is the same, leave it behind and pay attention to the present fire.
Taught from Luke 24:13-31 · Leviticus 6:8-13 · Leviticus 9:23-24 · 1 Peter 2:9 · Matthew 27:51-54
“God will send the fire, but it is your job to maintain the fire.”
From The Fire That Never Goes Out
The passage taught · 1 Peter 2:9
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light:
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- April 7, 2025 The Fire That Never Goes Out Leviticus 6 holds a surprising lesson: God starts the fire, but keeping it burning is our responsibility every single day.
- January 8, 2024 Leave the Past Behind You Brian Hunter walks through Luke 24 and the road to Emmaus, asking one question: are you so stuck in what was that you are missing what Jesus is doing right now?