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The Dawn Draws Near · Faith at Work

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: There is a question that echoes through every generation.
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  SPEAKER_01: Who is Jesus?
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean, really.
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  SPEAKER_01: It is not a modern question.
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  SPEAKER_01: It rises from the depths of Scripture itself.
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  SPEAKER_01: John the baptizer asks it while sitting in prison,
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  SPEAKER_01: as is told in Matthew chapter 11,
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  SPEAKER_01: verses 2 through 11.
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  This is the same John who leapt in Elizabeth's womb when Mary
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  came to visit,
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  SPEAKER_01: proclaimed repentance in the wilderness,
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  SPEAKER_01: and pointed directly at Jesus,
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  SPEAKER_01: saying,
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  SPEAKER_01: Here is the Lamb of God.
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  SPEAKER_01: He is the brightest student in the class.
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  SPEAKER_01: The one who knew the answer earlier than anyone else.
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  SPEAKER_01: And yet, in the scripture, he asks, Are you the one?
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  SPEAKER_01: Or should we be waiting on somebody else?
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  SPEAKER_01: Now,
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  the instinctive answer is to assume that John is doubting
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  because he is imprisoned
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  SPEAKER_01: by Herod.
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  SPEAKER_01: But that explanation is way too small.
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  It misses something far more profound that has shifted beneath
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  John's feet.
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  His question is not rooted primarily in fear,
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  but in optics and in vocation.
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  SPEAKER_01: John
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  SPEAKER_01: we remember, was called to prepare the way.
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  SPEAKER_01: He was the forerunner, the voice crying out in the wilderness.
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  SPEAKER_01: His entire vocation was tied to announcing what was coming next.
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  SPEAKER_01: Now, Jesus has arrived.
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  SPEAKER_01: So, John is really asking this.
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  SPEAKER_01: Is my role finished?
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  SPEAKER_01: And if it is, who am I now?
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  SPEAKER_01: That carries a lot of weight, I think, that question.
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  It means John must move from being a preparer of the way to
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  becoming a disciple of
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  From a prophet of a previous age that is ending to a
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  participant in a kingdom that is arriving.
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  SPEAKER_01: And friends, that is no small transition to make.
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  This understanding helps make sense of one of the most
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  unsettling lines in this
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  SPEAKER_01: passage of Scripture.
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  SPEAKER_01: Jesus says that among those born of women, no one is greater than John.
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  And yet,
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  he says,
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  the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he is.
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  SPEAKER_01: How can both of those things be true at the same time?
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, the understanding is that John stands at the hinge of history.
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  SPEAKER_01: He, in his person, fulfills the law and the prophets.
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  But he has not yet fully stepped into the new reality that
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  Jesus Christ is bringing here.
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  SPEAKER_01: It teaches us an important truth,
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  that greatness in the old system does not automatically
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  translate into life in the
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  SPEAKER_01: new one.
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  SPEAKER_01: And this is where discipleship becomes uncomfortable.
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  SPEAKER_01: Being a disciple is not first about how much we know, how hard we work,
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  SPEAKER_01: Or how clearly we point others to God.
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  True discipleship begins with recognizing that we are still
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  learning how to follow
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  SPEAKER_01: Jesus and how to recognize him in our world.
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  SPEAKER_01: John's message had always been that a new age was coming.
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  SPEAKER_01: And now his question becomes sharper.
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  SPEAKER_01: Is it still coming?
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  SPEAKER_01: Is it already here?
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  SPEAKER_01: And if it's here, why does the world still look the same to me?
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  SPEAKER_01: Jesus answered by pointing to what's happening around him.
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  SPEAKER_01: The blind see.
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  SPEAKER_01: The lame walk.
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  SPEAKER_01: Those pushed to the margin are restored.
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  SPEAKER_01: The poor are receiving good news.
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  These images echo Isaiah's vision of God's future breaking into
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  the world.
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  But what is striking is that if you look at all those different
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  scriptures in
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  SPEAKER_01: Isaiah,
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  Isaiah does not explicitly attribute these signs to the work of
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  the Messiah.
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  SPEAKER_01: So, Jesus is not checking off a list to prove his title.
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  SPEAKER_01: Instead, he seems uninterested in forcing a conclusion to
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  SPEAKER_01: He invites John to just look, to listen, and to discern for himself.
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  SPEAKER_01: This raises a deeper insight, I think.
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  Jesus seems less concerned with being labeled the Messiah and
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  more interested in
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  SPEAKER_01: living a life that embodies justice,
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  SPEAKER_01: healing,
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  SPEAKER_01: and peace.
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  SPEAKER_01: The evidence Jesus offers is not a resume.
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  SPEAKER_01: It has transformed lives.
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  SPEAKER_01: Now the text never tells us how John responds.
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  We can imagine a holy acceptance by John,
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  or we can imagine a very human frustration from John.
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  SPEAKER_01: After all, John's still in prison.
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  SPEAKER_01: Good things, yeah, are happening everywhere else, but not where he lives.
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  It's worth remembering that John's imprisonment might have
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  looked more like
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  SPEAKER_01: restrictive house arrest than a modern prison.
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  SPEAKER_01: He was likely surrounded by people shaped by his repentance ministry.
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  And even there,
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  he remains a witness,
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  though one wrestling with unanswered questions.
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  SPEAKER_01: In this passage,
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  SPEAKER_01: story, there are several intertwined messages.
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  One is about adjusting our expectations of what Jesus will and
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  will not do.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's optics.
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  The other is about who belongs in the kingdom and what does it
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  take to enter it.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's about vocation.
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  SPEAKER_01: Both confront us with an
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  SPEAKER_01: really uncomfortable truth,
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  faithfulness in the past does not exempt us from discernment in
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  the present.
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  SPEAKER_01: This passage also invites us to rethink doubt.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know, we often assume that doubt is something to be ashamed of.
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  SPEAKER_01: We pair it with fear or failure or weak faith.
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  SPEAKER_01: But John's doubt is not a problem to be corrected.
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  SPEAKER_01: It is a doorway for him.
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  SPEAKER_01: Doubt here is not the opposite of faith.
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  SPEAKER_01: It is faith refusing to live on old answers.
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  It is faith asking for alignment between what was promised and
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  what is being seen
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  SPEAKER_01: in the present.
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  SPEAKER_01: And in that sense doubt can be deeply faithful in our lives.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know I have felt that kind of doubt before.
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  Years ago,
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  my wife and I woke up in a cold basement apartment in a church
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  in Sicily.
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  SPEAKER_01: It looked something like this.
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  SPEAKER_01: We had a three-year-old daughter and a one-year-old son.
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  SPEAKER_01: And a calling that had once felt crystal clear in America...
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  SPEAKER_01: That morning, we asked ourselves what John asked himself.
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  SPEAKER_01: Did we really hear God right?
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  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's easy to trust God in the bright sunlight.
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  SPEAKER_01: It is much harder when the iron doors of difficulty close behind you.
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  And in those places,
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  doubt shows up not to destroy our faith,
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  but to refine it.
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  John struggles in this passage because Jesus is not acting the
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  way John expected
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  SPEAKER_01: the Messiah to act.
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  SPEAKER_01: Herod is still in power.
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  SPEAKER_01: Rome is still unchallenged.
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  SPEAKER_01: Retribution has not arrived.
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  SPEAKER_01: Justice does not look the way John imagined it.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that sounds familiar, right?
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  How often have we thought God should be doing something
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  different than what we see
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  SPEAKER_01: actually happening?
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  SPEAKER_01: How often have we dismissed movements of healing...
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  SPEAKER_01: Mercy or justice because they just don't fit in with our theology.
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  SPEAKER_01: Jesus does not resolve that tension for John.
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  He simply says,
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  well,
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  here's what I'm working on right now with some others.
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  SPEAKER_01: Decide for yourself.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that is still how discipleship works.
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  SPEAKER_01: People do not come to faith primarily through argument.
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  SPEAKER_01: They come through an encounter,
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  SPEAKER_01: through testimony,
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  SPEAKER_01: through seeing what happens when lives are touched by Jesus.
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  SPEAKER_01: Perhaps Jesus is not saying, look at everything I'm doing,
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  SPEAKER_01: But instead, he's saying, you know, talk to the people who are senile.
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  SPEAKER_01: Take a walk with the ones who can walk now.
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  SPEAKER_01: Celebrate with the poor who have hope again now.
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  SPEAKER_01: Hear their stories and then decide who I am.
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  SPEAKER_01: While a single person
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  SPEAKER_01: can be mistaken, a whole community transformed is harder to dismiss.
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  The collective testimony of countless lives in first century
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  Palestine carried real weight.
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  SPEAKER_01: Many concluded that God was indeed with this man.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that same collective witness continues.
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  SPEAKER_01: In fact,
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  a recent Washington Post opinion piece tells the story of a
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  distinguished academic
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  SPEAKER_01: who moved from agnosticism to Christian faith,
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  SPEAKER_01: not through emotional manipulation,
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  SPEAKER_01: but through sustained reasoning,
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  SPEAKER_01: intellectual honesty,
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  SPEAKER_01: and the accumulated testimony of lived experience.
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  Faith,
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  in his account,
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  was not the abandonment of thought,
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  but its deepening.
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  SPEAKER_01: John's question remains our question, I believe.
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  SPEAKER_01: Are you the one, or should we expect another?
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  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
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  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus still answers the same way.
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  SPEAKER_01: Look around.
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  SPEAKER_01: Pay attention.
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  SPEAKER_01: Let the dawn speak for itself.
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  Amen.