Sunrise Church

Jude wants us to see that this fight to which he is calling his hearers, to contend for the faith once delivered to all the saints, is part of a bigger picture and bigger war. Through false teachers, the Enemy who seeks to erode the faith and uproot believers and blunt the tip of the gospel as it goes forth to the nations.

Christians are not charged with a mandate to shape the culture by the values of the church. Instead, we are to fight diligently to ensure that the church isn’t shaped by the values of the culture.

With all that seeks to beset and cause fear for followers of Christ, our hope is found in God's sovereign power and a confidence in His everlasting ability to preserve His people.

As Jesus declared, there is only one way to salvation and Heaven, by grace alone through faith in Christ alone.

As God's people we must recognize that our purpose and role in creation is to know the Lord and make His glory known to all the earth.

Let not our faithfulness to Christ wane, nor our dutifulness of service to him falter as we await his coming; let us serve him and proclaim his coming to the final day.

“Ironically, this standard confession of the compassionate character of God is the root of Jonah’s anger…Steadfast love, when extended to Jonah, filled him with thanksgiving (Jonah 2:8), but when extended to the Ninevites, filled him with anger” (ESV Study Bible Note)

For some, salvation looks like living for yourself in this life with a promise of afterlife deliverance that often just looks like more living for yourself. That’s not the will of God in the lives of His people. God has a different view. God calls us to serve Him and his will of proclaiming His gospel to the nations and our neighbors.

The giant fish is incidental to the story. While it does lend a miraculous component that sets up an irrefutable case for God’s involvement in the events of Jonah, the fish simply serves to remind us, in a story where the book’s namesake has disobeyed God, that God is still in control. That is seen even brighter, not in the swallowing and subsequent vomiting of a giant fish, but in the prayer of Jonah that comprise the whole of chapter 2.