In this recorded men’s Bible study, Dan Willis walks through John chapter 11, stopping at verse 35 (Jesus wept). He begins with a brief audio check and a prayer, then reads the passage from the ESV, summarizing the narrative: Lazarus’s illness, Jesus’s two‑day delay, the disciples’ fear of returning to Judea, Jesus’s teaching about walking in the light, and the dialogue with Martha where He declares, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Willis highlights the theological tension between Jesus’s divine authority to raise the dead and His genuine human emotion when He sees Mary and the mourners weeping, emphasizing that Jesus’s tears reveal a deep, relational love for humanity. He interprets the short verse John 11:35 as a powerful illustration of Jesus’s fully human side, arguing that this love is not a distant decree but an intimate, compassionate response. Willis concludes by encouraging viewers to reflect on the depth of Christ’s love, invites comments and questions, and notes that the remainder of the chapter will be covered in a future session.
Chapters
All right, let's see. Audio seems to be working okay, hopefully. Hopefully that works okay tonight. Is that— hopefully, hopefully the audio is okay tonight anyway. We'll give it a shot, see how it goes, and take it from there. And if it doesn't work out okay, then we will just have to adjust it after the fact and see how it goes tomorrow. Okay, uh, so for those of you who are new here, first time, I've been going through the Book of John chapter by chapter. Tonight we're going through John 11. So if you don't have a Bible handy, don't worry, I always have one handy with me. Um, but yeah, so we just came out of, uh, the talk of being a good shepherd, the shepherd knowing the flock, where that's coming from. So that's there. Um, you can go back and watch those videos. I make sure to put them up after I'm done on the lives, so those are there. Um, John 11. I read from the ESV. You guys can read from whatever version you want. Let's open up in prayer though, and then we'll get going. Lord, thank you so much for this time. Thank you for your word. Thank you that we're able to just take a little bit of time, whether we're here live or we're watching it elsewhere at another time, just that we can open up your Bible and find your good word in it. Seek you out, seek what you have for us. In your name we pray. Amen. All right, uh, John 11. So now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. Okay, so friend of a friend, right? So the sister sent to him saying, Lord, him who— he whom you love is ill. But when Jesus heard it, he said, the illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified Through it. So this is interesting. Right from the get-go, they send word Lazarus isn't looking so hot, he's not going to make it. Jesus says, don't worry about it, it's not death, don't worry about it, what's happening is for a reason. I know it's hard to hear that, trust me, it's for God's glory. Seems like a bit of an odd response to receive as you're watching the man die there. Jesus is somewhere else. It's not like you can Skype or Zoom in. This is something that's happening and you are You know, miles and miles away as somebody sends word and your word back is, oh, don't worry about it. He's fine. Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed 2 days longer in the place where he was. Remember, he had gone back to the Jordan. Then after this, he said to the disciples, let us go to Judea again. The disciples said to him, Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you. Are you going there again? So This is back to the flock and the shepherds from John 10. What we heard back then was he had made some statements about them not being the flock of God. They wanted to stone him to death. They wanted to arrest him. It wasn't yet his time. He's already saying, okay, well, you know, I've been gone for a couple of days and I'm going to go back. They're a little worried, saying that's probably not a great idea. Are you sure you want to do that? Um, Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him. After saying these things, he said to them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him. The disciples said to him, Lord, if he's fallen asleep, he'll recover. So if he's sleeping, he'll wake up. It'll be okay. We don't need to go. You don't need to put yourself at risk over this. Nap time is not worth it. Now Jesus had spoken of the— of his death, but they thought that he meant taking a rest, as though taking a nap. Then Jesus told them plainly Lazarus had died. And for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him. So Thomas called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, let us go, that we may die with him. Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb 4 days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about 2 miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? She said to him, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who's coming into the world. Okay, so just let's work on this a little bit here. Jesus shows up. He's been in a tomb. This is not Canada. This is not an air-conditioned funeral home. This is one of the hottest places on earth, right? We're talking Middle East. We're talking Egypt, Israel, Jordan, that kind of area. Hot. You put a body in anywhere for 4 days, it's gonna start to smell a little funky. Things are gonna go a little south. Okay, um, they're already in the, in the time of mourning. They've been mourning his loss already. So it goes on. When she said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, the teacher's here and he's calling for you. When she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the village but was in the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, Where have you laid him? They said to him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. So the Jews said, see how he loved him. But some of them said, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also kept this man from dying? Okay, I want to stop there. I don't want to go all the way till the end of 11 tonight. I want to stop right there. But again, this part right here is, okay, where is he? I'm here to do the work. I'm the resurrection. I'm the life. We know that Jesus is here for a purpose. We know he's going to do something while he's here. Why is he here? What's up? He finally decides he's going to go see this body, and he has a reaction. Jesus wept. 2 words. Very, very short verse. John 11:35. Short, short, short verse. This verse is so important. Jesus knows that Lazarus is not dead but asleep. He said it earlier. He said it earlier in the chapter. Okay. He knows what he's there to accomplish. He knows that he's the resurrection and the life. He knows that God's glory is about to be made known, and he's going to bring Lazarus back from the dead. He— oh, spoiler alert, right? Uh, but he's gonna do that. He knows this work is about to happen. And yet, even still approaching the grave, he weeps. Jesus wept. I think this is a really beautiful, beautiful passage where we see that Jesus's manhood, where he's fully man and fully God, comes out in such a beautiful tapestry where you've got them woven together. And Jesus, although he's God, he has the authority to raise from the dead, although he knows Lazarus is going to be risen and it'll be to God's glory, he knows what he's about to perform, the man side of him, the fully man side, weeps. It cries for his friend who has died, who he loved. I think it's a really, really beautiful example for us of While Jesus was here, while Jesus is with us, he has a genuine love, a very, very real love. This is not some mandate from on high, God sitting on a throne somewhere kind of deal. That's not what this is. This is a deep relational emotional love that he has for Lazarus. He weeps. He weeps the same way that Mary and Martha had wept for him. He weeps as though he had lost a very near and dear friend. That's important. That's the kind of love that he carries in all the relationships that he has for us. He weeps. I definitely want to stop there for tonight. I, I know the end of 11 is going to be awesome and he does a cool thing, and but really the cool thing for me in this chapter— raising from the dead's amazing, but That God would become fully man and have a heart so in love with us, it's so much of a desire to be in relationship with us that he would just break down in tears. He would mourn, he would weep. And he goes even further at the end of John, and I'm not going to totally spoil that, but he has a love for us that is very deep and very real. It is not distant. It is not absent. It is real. That's it for tonight, guys. Let me know down below what your thoughts are. Hopefully the audio was a little bit better this time. If not, I'll continue playing around with it, see if I can't tool it, fix it, up it, do what I got to do with it. But for tonight, this is what we have. Hopefully it improves over time. And let me know in the comments what you think. There are some questions inside the description if you guys want to check those out and answer those. And I will catch you guys tomorrow. with the end of Chapter 11. Audio was good. Great. Thanks for joining, Richard. Take it easy. Have a great night.
