What does Tribe teach about spiritual maturity?
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 maturity starts with a simple and consistent claim: it is not measured by years in church, how worn your Bible is, or how long you have called yourself a Christian. Brian Hunter puts it plainly that maturity is measured by obedience, and that obedience usually shows up in small, daily moments before it ever shows up in dramatic ones. In one of the resurrection series conversations, Brian said, "You can have been a Christian for ten years but you're only one year old because after that first year you stopped obeying." The warning behind that is real: some people repeat their first year of faith for decades without ever moving further in.
A central thread running across many of Brian's messages is that maturity has everything to do with how a person handles suffering and discomfort. Rather than treating difficulty as a sign something has gone wrong, Brian teaches that the pattern in Scripture is consistent: God's most significant invitations arrive inside disruption, not comfort. From Gethsemane to the furnace in Daniel to a storm-wrecked ship in Acts 27, the encounters that shape people most deeply happen inside the hard thing, not after it passes. The movement Brian describes as a rough marker of Christian growth is the shift from praying that God would fix a situation to praying for the strength to endure it. He says that "spiritual maturity is not measured in age," and that drinking from the cup of suffering is not something to avoid but something to train for.
The same thread runs through Brian's teaching on Psalm 37 and the Sinai series. Knowing God's deeds is not the same as knowing his character, and the person who stays in the tent long enough, like Moses, comes away different. Brian also draws a distinction between knowing God's ways transactionally, showing up when you are hungry or frustrated and asking him to act, and the deeper posture of asking what God wants you to know about him in the middle of a situation. That shift, from consumer to participant, is where Brian locates the work of real maturity. As he frames it from Psalm 23:5, the feast, the anointing, and the overflowing cup are genuine promises, but the verse does not say they come when everything is comfortable. They come in the presence of enemies, and learning to receive the good thing inside the hard thing is what growing up in Christ actually looks like.
Taught from Psalm 37:34 · Exodus 24:7-11 · Psalms 23:5 · Matthew 26:36-41 · Romans 8:14
“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
The messages that teach on it
- 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.
- May 19, 2025 Victors Not Victims A Wyoming pastor hosts speaker Dr. Laura Sanger, who calls believers from spiritual infancy to mature sonship, and from a victim mindset to victors in Christ.
- September 23, 2024 Drinking Deep: Choosing Endurance Over Escape A Wyoming pastor walks through Matthew 26 and Mark 15 to explore why choosing the cup of suffering over escape is the path to spiritual maturity.
- September 22, 2024 Drinking Deep: Choosing Endurance over Escape A Wyoming pastor explores what it means to choose suffering over escape, drawing from Jesus in Gethsemane to show how endurance shapes spiritual maturity.
- December 12, 2022 Resurrection Week 3： Part 3 Brian Hunter walks Tribe fam through Isaiah 11, Daniel 7, and Revelation on reigning with Jesus, connecting resurrection and meekness to daily obedience and surrender.
Mentioned along the way
- September 29, 2025 Childish Games Jesus calls out religious leaders for moving the goalposts on God's messengers. A Jackson Hole congregation works through Luke 7 together, asking what childishness really costs.
- June 22, 2025 Comfort From The King Brian Hunter walks through Luke 21, explaining why Jesus's hard words about wars and persecution are meant to strengthen believers, not frighten them.
- May 18, 2025 Victory with Dr. Laura Sanger A teaching on what it means to grow from spiritual infancy into mature sons of God, and why that maturity matters in the battle against evil.
- January 23, 2023 Travel Steady Along His Path Week 3 Psalm 37 study on waiting for God, growing in obedience, and what it means in Hebrew to be honored and lifted up by him.