Buffalo City Church

Caleb Drahosh // In these verses, Jesus continues comforting His disciples. Though He is going away, He will return. In the meantime, the love His disciples have for Him will be evidenced by the fruit of obedience and will be empowered by the Holy Spirit. Jesus leaves believers peace; He leaves them confident assurance of their right standing before God and the reality that He will one day be with...

Caleb Drahosh \\ After remarking that He is the only way to the Father and that anyone who has seen Him has also seen the Father, Jesus tells the disciples that when He goes they will do greater work and another will come. He calls this other "the Helper" and the "Spirit of truth." This is the Holy Spirit who dwells with believers, who will be in them, and who will empower the great work of obedie...

Mark Reeves \\ Forgiveness doesn’t always come easily or all at once. Many times it’s a process. And the deeper the pain the longer the process can take. However, the process is where we’ll find the Lord at work if we seek Him earnestly with humility and expectancy. This is where our prayer life comes into play. Those who regularly practice substantial, disciplined prayer will find the process of...

Mark Reeves \\ Forgiveness doesn’t always come easily or all at once. Many times it’s a process. And the deeper the pain the longer the process can take. However, the process is where we’ll find the Lord at work if we seek Him earnestly with humility and expectancy. This is where our prayer life comes into play. Those who regularly practice substantial, disciplined prayer will find the process of...

Caleb Drahosh \\ The disciples are worried that Jesus plans to leave them and Peter tells Jesus that he will lay his life down for Jesus. Jesus then predicts that Peter will deny Him three times; Peter's own strength would not suffice. Jesus is going to the Father, and He is the only Way to the Father. We know the Way to the Father if we know Jesus. He and the Father are one and we must rely wholl...

Caleb Drahosh \\ After washing the feet of His disciples, Jesus reminds them of His inherent authority to command them to follow Him in washing the feet of one another. Judas’ satanic self-service creates a contrast, showing us the danger of trying to live out from underneath Jesus’ authority. Followers of Jesus love Jesus and one another by keeping the commands of Jesus and helping one another ke...

Blaze Culliton \\ From the beginning God has commanded His people to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might,” extending that love to those around us. This command was made new, made fully manifest in the person and work of Jesus Christ, who shines light into what it means to to know and to love God by obeying His commands.

Kalen Heller \\ With the entire list of Beatitudes Jesus speaks to what the citizens of His Heavenly kingdom will look like. The Kingdom is here, because the King is here. When Jesus speaks of peace, He means an absence of striving under our own power. The peace that Jesus is referring to is the peace we have with God through our faith in His Son Jesus Christ. When we receive the peace that Christ...

John Baumgartner \\ We were condemned to death because of our sin, but God satisfied His justice and His mercy on that tree where Christ bore our sins because He bore God’s wrath against them so that God could be both just in punishing sin and merciful to forgive sinners. Everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name.

Caleb Drahosh \\ In this passage, Jesus takes the posture of a servant and washes the feet of the disciples. Hastily, Peter rebuffs Jesus, and when Jesus corrects Peter, he goes too far asking Jesus to wash him entirely. As sinful people, we must be washed once and for all by the blood of Jesus. Additionally, we must continually have our feet washed as we walk through this sin-saturated world. Chr...

Caleb Drahosh \\ Many people listening to Jesus remain oblivious to Jesus' mission and do not believe. At the same time, many believed Jesus' words, but would not confess to it because of the persecution they would endure. Even in our day, the fear of man prevents many from following Jesus. But for those who are in Christ, God's good opinion of them does not change.

Caleb Drahosh \\ In this passage, some from outside of Israel, some Greeks, come to see Jesus. But the text implies that Jesus does not see them. Jesus was a man on a collision course with death. Those who truly serve Christ as king, don't just seek Him for His thought, but follow Him into death like His.

Caleb Drahosh \\ Three key things happen in this passage. Lazarus' sister, Mary, anoints the feet of Jesus, the chief priests plot to kill Lazarus, and Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey to the shouts of "Hosanna!" At the heart of these short sections is the reality that Jesus is infinitely worthy of honor and praise. Those whose hearts are hard toward Jesus grow more resistant to Him the more...

Caleb Drahosh \\ The chief priests and the Pharisees turn up the heat after Jesus raises Lazarus. They're concerned that the Romans are going rob them of their way of life. And so the high priest, Caiaphas, proposes eliminating Jesus outright. What Caiaphas did not know is that Jesus' death would mean the redemption of Israel –– and the whole world. Caiaphas thinks that killing Jesus would secure...

John Baumgartner \\ Peter tells Christians to be subject to their masters even when they are unjust because God is glorified when His people face injustice and endure by entrusting their lot to Him. Jesus Christ is the perfect example of this by how He entrusted Himself totally to His Father, even suffering an unjust trial and execution. Being raised from death with Him, Jesus empowers us to do th...

Caleb Drahosh \\ The resurrection of Jesus ensures our eternal life together and the eternal and unfading nature of God's Word. But what about all the stuff that won't last forever? The temporary things of this world were created so that mankind could reflect the wisdom of God by living righteously through working diligently and prudently. We glorify God when we invest temporary resources into ete...

Caleb Drahosh // God's Word is untouchable and will never become irrelevant. For us as Christians, investing time in God's Word will never be wasted; the word of our God will never fade, even when everything else does. The resurrection of Jesus Christ gives us full assurance of the eternal authority, clarity, necessity, and sufficiency of God’s Word.

Caleb Drahosh \\ As those who are in Christ, united with Him in His death and life, our life in Him will never end. Investments in others who share that identity are eternal. Proverbs 18:1 warns us of the dangers of isolation and ignoring a vital resource God provides us: biblical community. The local church — and the relationships and community we have within it — is a non-negotiable because it’s...

Caleb Drahosh \\ We are joined to Christ's death and resurrection, and therefore we are a new creation. The newness we have in Christ isn’t a future promise, it’s a current reality. We are a collection of immortals — united with Christ in His death, in His life, living for Him by living for one another now — and it will never end.

Caleb Drahosh \\ Four days after Lazarus died, Jesus arrives in Bethany. He is met by Martha and reveals to her that He is the resurrection and the life. Life as we know it does not exist apart from Jesus; and the promised eternal life does not exist apart from Jesus. Jesus strengthens faith's root system in Martha and Mary and the believing Jews giving a glimpse of His power over death.

Caleb Drahosh \\ In this passage, Jesus is told that His friend Lazarus is sick and dying. Surprisingly, Jesus waits two more days before heading to Bethany, where Lazarus is. In that time, Lazarus dies. Jesus' mission is to defeat sin and death, and He is preparing to fulfill that mission. Jesus courageously and faithfully calls out the enemy He came to put to death: death itself.

Caleb Drahosh \\ After claiming that He is one with the Father, the Jews again seek to stone Jesus. He asks which one of His good works is leading to this action, and they reply that it's not a good work, but blasphemy. In an act of mercy, Jesus asks the Jews to start by receiving His works so that their partial belief may grow into full-fledged saving faith — because unless you take all of Jesus,...

Kalen Heller \\ Guilt and shame are two of the greatest obstacles that keep us from fully worshiping the risen Christ. Outside of Jesus, there has never existed someone that has not been plagued with feelings of guilt and shame and that includes King David – the man after God’s own heart. In Psalm 51 we find a heartfelt, spirit-filled confession of the sins David has committed with Bathsheba, agai...

Mark Reeves \\ In Hebrews 5:11-6:20 the reader is warned of the peril of spiritual dullness and is reminded of the provision God made so we might be fully alive in Christ. When we drift into worldliness we are in danger of neglecting God’s immeasurable provision and become blinded to the things which bring spiritual death. Christ’s sacrifice, however, empowers us to overcome spiritual dullness and...

John Baumgartner \\ What Peter wrote to these Christians under severe persecution can also help us. Unbelievers will accuse Christians of doing evil, but Christians’ good deeds will show that accusation to be a lie, and God will be glorified through it all. Christians are to respond to unjust suffering as subjects of government and as subjects of masters/employers by enduring it. Jesus conquered a...