What does Tribe teach about sexual purity?
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 sexual purity starts not with a list of rules but with what holiness actually means. Pastor Brian worked through 1 Thessalonians 4:7, slowing down two words that are easy to read past. The word holy, in the Greek, means to consecrate, to purify, to set apart and dedicated entirely to God's use. Brian illustrated it with two identical batteries. Nothing about either one is different by nature, but the moment you separate one and mark it for a single purpose, that one is holy and the other is common. The danger he kept returning to is getting set apart and then drifting back into the common pile, becoming indistinguishable again. Romans 6:12-14 was where the congregation saw that contrast laid out in full, with Paul naming the pull back toward the ordinary and calling believers to offer themselves to God instead.
The teaching also pushed back against the idea that past failure disqualifies a person. Brian brought in 2 Timothy 2:20-21, where Paul compares people to utensils in a wealthy home, some gold and silver for special use, some wood and clay for everyday use. A fork cannot change what it is made of, but a person can, because Jesus makes someone new from the inside. Brian named the enemy's strategy plainly: to remind people of what they have done and convince them they are wood and clay, that they have already lost the right to be used for anything higher. That is a lie the teaching specifically addresses.
The word called, the second word Brian slowed down in that verse, carries the sense of an invitation rather than a demand imposed from a distance. As Brian put it, "Religion demands outward adherence. Jesus invites us into relationship that evokes inward holiness." The call to purity is not God standing at arm's length issuing requirements. It is God drawing someone in. And Brian was clear on the other side of that invitation too: "God has invited us to live holy lives. He does not invite us into holiness without also equipping us to live holy."
Taught from 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 · 1 Thessalonians 4:7 · Romans 6:12-14 · 2 Timothy 2:20-21 · Luke 14
“Religion demands outward adherence. Jesus invites us into relationship that evokes inward holiness.”
From Called to Holiness
The passage taught · 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
1 Finally then, brothers, we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, that you abound more and more.
2 For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
3 For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality,
4 that each one of you know how to control his own body in sanctification and honor,
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- August 26, 2026 Called to Holiness Brian Hunter walks through 1 Thessalonians 4:7, showing that God's call to holy living is an invitation he equips us for, not a demand we have to meet on our own.
- July 19, 2026 Called To Holiness Brian Hunter walks through 1 Thessalonians 4:7, showing that God's call to holy living is an invitation he equips us for, not a demand we meet on our own.