What does Tribe teach about loving jesus?
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 loving Jesus starts with an honest question pulled from John 21: do you love me more than these? Jay Cummings brought this message from the post-resurrection scene on the shore of Galilee, where Jesus cooks breakfast for the disciples and then turns to Peter with that question three times. Jay pointed out that the three questions mirror Peter's three denials, and that the Greek behind the exchange matters. Jesus uses agape, self-sacrificing love, in his first two questions. Peter answers both times with phileo, the love of a friend. By the third question Jesus meets Peter where he is and uses phileo as well. Jay described it as Peter, once boastful about what he would do for Christ, now unable to claim more than friendship and being honest about it.
For Jay, that honesty is where real love for Jesus begins. Loving Jesus is not a feeling people work up. It is a direction a life actually moves. He made the distinction plainly: "Jesus didn't come to make bad people better. He came to transform us into something entirely new." The evidence that someone genuinely loves Jesus is a life that looks different than it did before, not just emotionally but in what still holds their loyalty. The question Jesus presses on Peter, whether he loves him more than the fish, more than the old way of life, is the same question Jay brought into the room for everyone present.
Jay was also clear that the people who most struggle to take this seriously are not the obviously lost. "The people that really have the hardest time knowing they need transformation is people who are close to God, who walk with him, who claim to love him." Familiarity with church, with the language, with the story can become its own kind of blindness. Loving Jesus, in the teaching at Tribe, means staying open to the question Peter had to face on that shore, and being willing to answer it honestly rather than with the bravado Peter showed before the crucifixion.
Taught from John 21:15-19 · 1 John 1:8-9 · Psalm 139:23-24 · 2 Corinthians 5:17 · Ephesians 4:22-24
“Jesus didn't come to make bad people better. He came to transform us into something entirely new.”
From Do You Love Me More Than These
The passage taught · 1 John 1:8-9
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- February 26, 2024 Do You Love Me More Than These Jay Cummings preaches on spiritual transformation at Tribe Church in Jackson Hole, exploring what it truly means to love Jesus and live a changed life.
- February 25, 2024 Transformation (Do You Love Me) A young man's rock-bottom moment in Texas led to a real encounter with Jesus. This sermon explores what genuine transformation looks like and what it costs.