Testimony – Grace imparted through friendship

Note: As a part of a regular testimony program at our church (Sovereign Grace Church of Indiana, PA) I was asked to share my testimony during the service March 27, 2010.  The "my testimony" part of that seems to me to be an overstatement of my involvement.  Why you ask?  Because its really a story of how God went about saving me - a person who wasn't interested in looking for him or even gave thought to look for him.  Though my story is mediocre compared to others, it is "great" to me!  As you read this I trust that you will see the work of the providential loving God.   By His Grace alone, for reasons He only knows, He sought me out through of all things a friendship.  For which I cannot convey how grateful I am and how undeserving I feel. 



Josh's Bachelor Party

I am 53 years old.  Way back in 1980 while finishing up my college years here at IUP I went to this church.    Two different jobs and eight years after that Sue and I returned to Indiana and have since raised our four children while attending here.  

This past summer I had my first taste of beer in 33 years at my oldest son’s (Josh) bachelor party. That’s right the last beer I had was when I was twenty. I was surprised by two things; the taste of beer hadn’t changed much. And…. this was my first legal beer - ever. I mention this because it makes me smile. Though I have never done drugs or some of the other serious vices, in my heart I wasn’t any different than anyone else.  




The Brown Family

  I was blessed to be raised in a stable family with loving parents. I played little league, pee wee football and other sports. We did things together as a family. We had fun. My brother Bob and I physically fought daily to my mother’s anguish. My father faithfully disciplined us. We regularly went to a Methodist Church as I was growing up. We weren’t Christians but we were consistent in our attendance. We would go to church and then get donuts. We didn’t differentiate one from the other.



I am hiding at the far left second row. 

 

I suppose I was like a lot of people prior to being saved. I had some poorly conceived philosophy about life. It was probably something like a self-centered version of the golden rule. I thought I should be good to others, but at the same time I wasn’t going to make a decision that didn’t benefit me.

When I look back now the gospel was all around me. There was that young married couple that ran our church youth group.  My best friend’s parents along with his older brother and sister.  My Aunt Margaret and those seemingly insignificant brief encounters that are obvious to me now but weren't then.  How could I miss a pink elephant in the room like that? Yet I didn’t see it, give thought to it, or recognize that there was even a difference between knowing God and not knowing God. Given my relatively good life I wasn’t really happy. In high school I would often write in my notebooks the word “help.” I scribbled it everywhere. Sometimes underlining it or repeatedly writing over it. My notebooks were covered with it.  It might seem odd now, but though I would constantly write the word help, it didn’t occur to me to ask “Hey why are you always writing that?”

At times as a teenager I would walk out to our back yard at night where it was completely quiet and looked up at the sky. I would stare at it for a little while noticing how vast and many stars there were. Contemplating what this rock I was standing on might look like to someone on one of those stars. It sounds silly now but I can recall yelling out “What is this place? – Am I real? Am I just a dream? I even recall wondering if the Twilight Zone TV show made any more sense than my life? Do I even really exist I thought?” Whoever wrote the movie the Matrix must have had an experience like this. I wasn’t really talking to anyone in particular. I was just wandering in aimless thought. In a way I suppose crying “help”.



Prior to picking up our dates. 1975 Bethel Park Senior High Prom  

 

In third grade I met a friend named Rob Irwin.  We lived fairly close to each other. Rob would become my best man when Sue and I married. Rob had been raised in a Christian family. Rob’s family made me feel welcome in their home and treated me in a way that made it easy to be around them. I can recall many fun times at his house.

Though Rob’s parents were Christian Rob was not. This is an important distinction. God used Rob and his family in my early life even though Rob would tell you himself that he was not a Christian while we were growing up. Over time God used a series of little events involving Rob’s family that God would use years later. I recall one time while in elementary school I took the Lords name in vain and Rob said to me (remember we’re talking about two ten year olds), He said to me “Hey you don’t want to do that! You’re talking about God! How would you like everyone going around saying Doug this and Doug that every time they stubbed there toe?”  I had one of those movie moments where something significant occurs and one character freezes as action continues around him.  Even at ten years of age it made me stop and contemplate.   

While playing Rock’m Sock’m Robots as kids Rob mentioned in passing how his Dad emotionally told him how fortunate he was to have a mother like his mother.  That movie moment occurred to me again.  I never heard anyone speak so highly of another like that before.  Once as a teenager I was telling Rob what a great time I had the previous weekend with a group of friends getting drunk with one of their Dad’s. Rob’s reaction to my excitement made me realize how sad an event this actually was for a grown adult to participate with underage kids in such a thing. 



That's Rob in the background



These events obviously had an effect on my life. Yet as a 20 year old IUP college student living at Rooney Hall I was still apathetic about God. I was completely unaware of any connection between life and God. Following my first year at IUP in 1978, I went home for the summer and got together with Rob as was our norm. As I implied earlier, Rob was always different from my other friends, but that summer he was even more different. He started talking to me about Jesus and the bible. I had never heard some of things he was saying. I asked what happen to him. Did he get into some cult at college? He continued to tell me about how he came to know Christ at college through of all things a death of college friend. I asked him all kinds of questions. Questions like “you mean to tell me that a good person who honestly believes in God his whole life but doesn’t believe in Jesus will go to hell?”  Though Rob tried he couldn’t answer a single question to my satisfaction. His concern for me however was evident in the kind passion in which he spoke to me. But his answers to my questions made me think he was nuts.

For some reason I was moved by his genuine concern for me. I wish I could communicate the impact that his simple effort had on me. The words didn’t seem to matter but I caught his desire! That night while I laid in bed I began looking up at the stars again so-to-speak and asked this time quietly “God if you are real please let me know. I don’t want to live my life not knowing you.” I asked the same thing the next night and probably several nights thereafter.

Several months later after I returned to IUP Rooney Hall room 204.  (What a special room that is to me now!)   I now had this desire to be a Christian but didn’t know what to do.   Rob sent me a bible to read and encouraged me to start with the book of Mark.  I read and read and read.  The bible became sweet to me.  I was amazed that I could read about God and that I could find out “what this place is” and “what life is all about”.  I began to become more aware of Jesus sacrifice.  But I still didn’t know what to do. Eventually I came to realize that when I asked God to let me know Him in my bedroom months before.  That that’s when I actually was saved.

How do I explain - that after that simple prayer in my bedroom and without any real knowledge of the bible, I started to see things differently, hear things differently, think about things differently, react differently, and I quickly became aware that I was missing something very good and that it was God.  Where just a few days before that I never gave it a thought.  I gained a real sense of contentment in my life that I know now was forgiveness. Think about that! I didn’t do anything but make a simple request after hearing the gospel from someone I respected but didn’t believe and within days my life dramatically changed. It still amazes me.

Robert and Pam Irwin with their daughter who is now in college.  By the way Rob is also in the football photo above same row as me second from the right. 



The family that God worked through Rob to save.