What does Tribe teach about who is 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 who Jesus is starts with a portrait most people never encountered in Sunday school. Brian Hunter worked through Isaiah 63:1-9 and asked a single question: who is this figure sweeping in from the desert with blood-stained robes, marching with singular purpose and unmistakable strength? Brian traced the progression of portraits Isaiah had already painted of the Messiah before that chapter, infant, divine royal child, servant, chosen servant, suffering servant, and then placed this warrior image alongside them. The figure coming out of Edom has not merely survived the desert. He has mastered it. When the figure answers for himself, Brian stopped on the full weight of those words: "It is I, the Lord, announcing your salvation. It is I, the Lord, who has the power to save."
The core problem Brian kept returning to is that God is holy and his eyes are too pure to look on sin, yet he created people in his image and longs for relationship with them. Every person has fallen short, and no personal effort or moral resume can bridge that gap. The Messiah fights a bloody and lopsided battle at great cost to himself before he ever reaches the locked door of the tower where humanity is held. Brian described recognizing that cost, not just the rescue, as a mark of maturity in faith. As the passage closes, the register shifts entirely, and what follows the imagery of wrath and trampled enemies is unfailing love, mercy, and a God who lifts his people up and carries them. Brian read the line "In all their suffering, he also suffered and he personally rescued them" as the same figure, the warrior from the desert, becoming the one who bears the weight for those he came to save.
In earlier messages in the same teaching thread, Brian pressed on this same question through the liar, lunatic, or Lord framework, asking the congregation to sit with what Jesus actually claimed about himself. He also connected the teaching to Isaiah 9 and the Christmas narrative, showing that the child whose dominion rests on his shoulders is the same figure Isaiah later sees marching in from Edom. For Brian, the portrait of Jesus is never just one image. It is the full sweep, infant and warrior, servant and Lord, the one who suffers and the one who saves.
Taught from Isaiah 63:1-9 · Isaiah 52-53 · Isaiah 9 · Song of Solomon 8:5 · Isaiah 7
“It is I, the Lord, announcing your salvation. It is I, the Lord, who has the power to save.”
From Who Is This？ The Champion from the Wilderness
The passage taught · Isaiah 11
1 A shoot will come out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots will bear fruit.
2 Yahweh’s Spirit will rest on him: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Yahweh.
3 His delight will be in the fear of Yahweh. He will not judge by the sight of his eyes, neither decide by the hearing of his ears;
4 but with righteousness he will judge the poor, and decide with equity for the humble of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; and with the breath of his lips he will kill the wicked.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- November 24, 2025 Who Is This？ The Champion from the Wilderness Brian Hunter walks through Isaiah 63 to paint a portrait of Jesus as both tender savior and conquering king, asking the question: who is this man?
- November 23, 2025 Who Is This Man? A pastor in Jackson Hole traces a striking portrait of Jesus through Isaiah 63, asking the question: who is this warrior-king marching in from the desert?
- December 25, 2023 Tribe Christmas Eve Service Brian Hunter shares the Christmas story on Jackson Hole's Town Square, tracing it from the garden to Bethlehem and inviting anyone to receive forgiveness and new life.
Mentioned along the way
- July 1, 2024 The Hook That Will Not Fail You Pastor Brian Hunter preaches on hanging your beliefs on hooks that can bear the weight, using Isaiah 22 to explore where we place our faith and why it matters.
- June 30, 2024 The Greatest Hook A sermon from Jackson Hole about where you place your deepest beliefs, and why the hook you hang them on matters more than you might think.