What does Tribe teach about spiritual laziness?
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 spiritual laziness starts with an honest naming of what it actually feels like. Brian Hunter describes it as the doldrums, a sailing term for when a ship sits dead in the water with no wind and no direction. He is careful to separate rest, which is good and necessary, from drifting, which is something else entirely. The danger he points to is not that a person takes a break. The danger is coasting past rest into a place where the sail comes down and a person stops listening for the Lord's voice altogether.
The teaching grounds this in how a person is made. Brian explains that after someone is born again, the spirit is meant to be in charge, taking direction from God and activating the soul and body to respond. Spiritual laziness, then, is not just a matter of low motivation. It is the flesh reclaiming ground that the spirit is supposed to hold. He ties this directly to Psalm 27:8, where God says come and talk with me and David's heart answers immediately. That response, Brian says, is a picture of the spirit activating everything else and setting other things aside, even for a moment.
The note the teaching lands on is not condemnation but invitation. Brian asks honestly when was the last time someone heard that still small voice, and he frames the question as one worth sitting with. He points to the Lord's own words in Psalm 27:8 as evidence that the invitation has not been withdrawn: as Brian says, "He longs to talk with you. His word says, my heart has heard you say, come and talk with me." And he raises the possibility that people who feel they cannot hear God may be listening through the wrong channel, through the senses rather than through the spirit.
Taught from Psalm 27:8 · Psalm 27 · Jeremiah 12:5
“If racing against mere men makes you tired, how will you race against horses?”
From Come and Talk with Me
The passage taught · Jeremiah 12:5
5 “If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? Though in a land of peace you are secure, yet how will you do in the pride of the Jordan?
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- December 30, 2024 Come and Talk with Me Pastor Brian Hunter walks Tribe through Psalm 27, calling the congregation out of holiday spiritual drift and into quiet, attentive time with God before the new year.
- December 22, 2024 Come and Talk with Me A sermon on Psalm 27 about staying spiritually alert during the lull between Christmas and New Year's, with four simple practices to quiet yourself and hear God speak.