Nothing Moves Me — Don McClure

Our Father and our God, we thank You for these days, as hard as they are for us. And there is a hunger, Lord, in this city, and it can only be met by You. And we thank You, Lord, for our brother. We thank You for Don.

We thank You for the words that You have brought to him, for the heart that You have brought to him, and that You are going to bring that to us. But, Lord, over it all, we just seek You, and we seek Your touch, on this city and on our hearts.

May the revival start in our hearts, each of our hearts, first. And then may we watch You, Lord, do what You do. So bless our brother, we pray. Be with him in all ways, and we ask it in Christ's name, with thanksgiving, amen.

Is it working? There we go. All right. First of all, I would like it duly noted that I'm wearing a tie. Now this is something for me. Greg is, there's something amazingly persuasive about him. I just met him up here, although we've been communicating back and forth in little ways over the years.

But when he asked me to come, now I'm a Scotsman, on both sides of my family, whereas I'm Scotsman, both of my parents' descendants were Scottish Covenanters, any of you know what they were? A few of you, maybe.

But that's our roots. But to get a Scotsman, first of all, to buy his ticket, and then to come up, and then to get a hotel, and then his food, I mean, that's a pretty impressive thing to do. And he had no trouble doing that.

But then to say, I want you to wear a tie, I said, oh man, this is, Alan Redpath used to call a Christian a dead man on furlough, and I thought, I'm ready to die, but I'll wear one. No, I do wear them occasionally.

But it's wonderful to be here with you, and to be able to share with you. And yesterday and today, I spent the day with the pastor and his wife, for the most part, so I wasn't able to catch up on a lot that went on today.

But it's great to be here with you. And most of all, also to be, you know, I also came to hear Charles, I've known him for so many years, we were in school together many years ago, and I've been around him on a couple of occasions since, and then got snippets of him, you know, in the ministry up here in Canada, and other places.

He's done quite a bit of traveling in ministry through the years, and our paths didn't cross that much, but I also wanted to come and hear him, and boy, was it worth it. And it was a real blessing for me.

The Apostle Paul's Life Verse: “Nothing Moves Me”

But tonight, what I would like you to do for our time together, which to tell you the truth, I struggled a lot. You're not supposed to, when you get into a pulpit, you're supposed to be quite self-assured or something, I'm not sure everything of it, but I do a lot of speaking, and I'm with a movement that I do a lot with.

When I came with the fellowship that I've been a part of, I've been with it for 40 years, it was just one church. And through the years, we were born in a time of revival, back as many of you were as well, in various parts of the world, we were also affected.

But one of the things that we felt very strongly needed to happen was not just simply to ride out the revival, but in the sense of God teach us, how can we continue it? And at that point, my life had been tremendously changed by Alan Redpath and taking me under his wing, and then Cape and Ray, where also Charles was.

And I was convinced that the only hope we had for the future was to train as many as we possibly could. And so I convinced the leadership to buy a facility where we went and started Bible College. And I don't know how many, literally thousands, have gone through it.

But over the years, we've planted about 1 ,000 churches in the United States, and there's 500 outside. And it's almost all my time, because I've been with them since there was just one, has just been preoccupied with that.

Once in a while, I'll get out and do something like this, but I'm never knowing exactly what to do when I'm... Most of the people I'm with, I've been working with for 30 and 40 years. And so now, when I walk into a thing and I look at you, and I see you're looking at me like I look at you, and it's, who are you and what are you doing here?

And so as we stare back and forth at each other, I'm saying, Lord, what am I doing here? And to have a word that hopefully would be something that would be a word from heaven. And that's all I desire to have at the end of it, that I could, as Paul says, that which the Lord gave to me have I delivered unto you.

That's all I ever want, hopefully, to happen any time. But this evening, I'd like you to turn to Acts chapter 20, if you would. And I want to share with you a little of what I feel is the Apostle Paul's life's verse.

That's a rather bold statement, I say, to look at somebody else, particularly somebody like Paul. And to say what I would say to me, I picked out a life verse for him. And I've shared this life verse with other people now.

I may get to heaven, and he may look at me and say, that was not my life's verse. I never would have picked that, and you're wrong. That'll be fine. But at the same time, a lot of people probably come up to him and say, I loved your life's verse.

And he'll say, what was it? So Don told me what it was, McClure. And well, he'll say, he never knew what he was talking about. But this, to me, one verse encapsulates, to me, the Apostle Paul, with all of his ministry and all the things that he had to say and do over his lifetime.

The ministry that he had, the people he led to Christ, the churches he had planted, his three great missionary journeys, and all of these wonderful writings and epistles, and the things that he has left for us.

One of the, and to pick out one verse, in a sense, that I think really grasped Paul to me. It's in Acts chapter 20, and in verse 24, as he is speaking there to the elders of Ephesus. But here he shares with them in this verse that I want to spend this evening in.

He says, but none of these things move me, neither count I my left ear unto myself, so that I may finish my course with joy in the ministry that I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify in the gospel of the grace of God.

Let's pray, and we'll look at that. Lord, we want to thank you tonight for your word, and we ask that as we look at it, Lord, that you would open it up to us. And Lord, as this step-by-step way that I think Paul reveals so much of his heart and life, Lord, that perhaps we'd gain an insight into him and what made him tick.

We ask, Lord, you'd help us. In Jesus' name, amen. And as I said about Paul, to me, when I look at this, he's somebody that, you look at him, and probably, I suppose history would probably look at Paul as probably the most famous Christian that ever lived.

And now, whether that's true or not, in heaven, who knows, that'll be God's accounting. But it's just that when you look at Paul, you watch him, you know, through his three missionary journeys that he had.

You look there at the epistles that he has written and left for the church, and you look at his tremendous witness, the way he led people to Christ, planted churches, and the tremendous effect that he had.

I suppose that if he isn't the most famous, I don't know who it would be, probably at least the most well-known, if you were to try to take all of those through history. And in the sense of looking at this life, what a tremendous man of God, obviously.

What a way the Lord lived his life in and through Paul, the way that it's such power, such victory for decades. And you look at this man, you wonder, how does a man go through the things that Paul went through?

And we'll look at some of those things that he went through tonight a little bit. How does he not just simply survive them, but Paul even seems to be a man that just didn't survive. He thrived through the hardest of times, the greatest of difficulties, and yet he was a man there with it somehow or another.

It seemed like the more that he was pressed, the more victory and strength seemed to flow into his life and the greater his witness and testimony. And as I said to me, when I look at this one verse, if I was to pick one verse that for me causes me to say, I know what makes him tick and I understand it, and it's here in Acts chapter 20, verse 24.

As he begins it, he tells us here, he says, but none of these things move me. Now, wouldn't you love to say that? Stop to think about your life for a little bit. Wouldn't you love to be somebody that you could actually look at the world and say, nothing moves me.

And what an incredible thing to be able to say, to be able to look at life, all the potential, all the battles, all the struggles, all the trials, all the temptations, all of the warfare that you can be involved in and have been involved in and still yet will have ahead of you, but be able to look right back at it and say, nothing moves me.

To me, what an incredible statement to make. And when you look at Paul and you realize him saying this, you wonder, well, how does a guy say that? You know, when somebody says this, was Paul just some sort of a real tough guy that in a sense, you look at him and he could just say, come on, give it your best shot, nothing moves me.

Was he just sort of a, you know, a tough guy, like some sort of a, you know, Western cowboy? Well, we know enough about Paul to know that's not true. He wasn't proud. He wasn't arrogant. When he's looking there and he's saying, nothing moves me, it was because something had happened spiritually within his life.

So there was some exchange, some process that the Lord Jesus had brought him through and some equipping, some maturing that had happened to where Paul could actually look at life and all of its potential disasters, nothing moves me.

What an incredibly wonderful thing. And you know, to be able to say, when you would look at our lives and our world and all the things around you, all the potential things, things may be going on in your life right now, the things that could be potentially going on, you know, in your life, your home, your health, you know, your, your, your career, your, your, your, your wealth, your literal existence.

But to be able to look and say, nothing moves me. How does he say that? What's the secret of it? Well, a little bit of the secret of it to me, I think is in another very famous verse of Paul's in first Corinthians 10, 13, another one you probably know by heart, where Paul speaking to the church at Corinth, he tells them, he says, there is now therefore no temptation.

That's no test, trial, temptation, anything like this that has overtaken you such as, but they're all common to man. And he says, and God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the test or the temptation, make a way of escape that you're able to bear it.

Now, Paul, I think gives a little insight into how he was able to say, nothing moves me. You want to know why nothing moves me? I'll tell you why. He says, I've learned some things about the tests and the trials that God allows in life.

And he says, and there's two things essentially that he gives us here in this verse, two great truths that if you get nothing else that I've got to say tonight, I think they're very powerful myself. The first thing that Paul's had to say about trials, he says, first of all, I want you to realize they're common to man.

They're common to man. Paul was somebody who's able to look and he had gone through enough years, enough decades, enough trials, enough things that could happen to him. And one day he realized there's only so many trials out there.

There's only so many things you can do to somebody. And finally one day you realize what happens to you, what happens to me, it's common. Have you ever noticed on how the devil has this tremendous capacity with us?

When you go through a trial, he singles you out and makes you feel like you're the only one that it's ever happened to. He's got this great capacity. You know, when you're going through something, he singles you out.

It's almost as if the devil spent the last hundred years working out a new trial that he's never done before. And you're the test case. You know, he's looking at you, I'm going to do it to you and see how it works.

And you're looking at this thing. And you know, we want to sing, nobody knows the trouble I've seen. You know, it's almost like the devil has this way of isolating us in a trial to make us feel like nobody can understand it.

It's uncommon. I'm all alone in it. Paul says nonsense to that. I've been around, I've been through enough that I realized, first of all, let me tell you there's only so many trials and I've been through them.

They're common to man. And I think the Apostle Paul tended to look at trials spiritually the way we almost look at physical trials a little bit. Do you have any of these? I haven't seen any. I imagine I've been around a lot of the country.

I haven't seen any in your city. But like, you know, these health exercise places here in town? You mean any of you members of those, like 24-hour fitness things? One person. Well, you might look into it.

I don't know. That's up to you. But I'm not pushing health things tonight. But the point of it is, if you've ever been in one of those, which evidently you haven't, but at any rate, if you've ever been in one, you get in and after you've been around a few, and I've been around a few, you begin to realize there's only so many body parts.

There's only so many muscles. There's only so many things. And virtually, if you go into one of these gyms, they've only got so many things. They've got the rowing machines, the running machines, they've got all the various weight machines, the leg lifting machines, you know, the ski and all the different muscle groups there are that we have in our body.

There's only so many tests. After you've been through, they've got different variations of them, and one after another after another. But one day, if you've ever been in them, you realize they're common to man.

And the interesting thing, we seem to understand that on the physical thing. You go in. In fact, we're very interesting to me, human beings, I think, in a sense, because the way that we are is that a lot of people, evidently nobody here, but a lot of people, they join these things, and they go in, and we're interesting people.

We walk into this place. We look around. The more machines they've got, the better, you know, and the newer and the fancier, you know, things that they have, and we will actually give them money. We will sign up.

How much is it? I'll give you the money. How much do you want every month? Okay, here's my credit card. I want to join. And then we turn to them, and now I'm going, I want to pay you to hurt me. Just hurt me, you know, and we actually go in, and we pay people to put us through pain, put us to the limit, all that we can do, because we know physically that if we will subject ourselves willingly to certain trials and tests, and that it will strengthen our body for the rest of the week, it gives us capacity to have greater energy and greater maturity and greater strength to achieve other things if we will willfully subject ourselves in the physical world and even pay for it.

We'll do that. But the interesting thing is, we don't seem to understand that spiritually, but Paul, I think, first of all, he looked at trials just like somebody would look at physical trials, and he says, they're common to man.

So don't think there's anything that's going to happen, Paul, for all you that hasn't been used for centuries on millions of Christians. It's common. Common, they are. Paul had been to one town after another after another, and he had quite a list of things that everybody could do to him and attempted to do and succeeded in doing over the years.

And one day he realized, I think he was actually, I don't know if he was cynical about it, but when he'd go through some new thing and some new beating, and maybe looked at him and said, is that your best shot?

The guy in the last town knew how to work that whip. Here, give it to me. Let me show you something here. You know, after you lay it in and then snap it back harder, you hardly took any flesh with that at all.

Come on, young man, let me show you how to do it. I don't know, but you just realize, here's a man that had gone through so much. And one day he realized the trials that are out there, they're common.

A second thing that Paul also, though, tells us here in 1 Corinthians 10, 13, he says, not only are they common to man, and he says, but secondly, he tells us there, he says that God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted about what you're able, but will with the test make a way of escape that you're able to bear it.

Now, here, basically, the second thing Paul had learned about the trials that God allows us to go through in life, not only they're common, but secondly, he looks at us and he says, essentially, when you became a Christian, whether you know it or not, you joined God's gym.

Everyone joins it. You're a member of it. Your dues are all paid. You did it for it. In fact, even Jesus promises, one of his wonderful promises in John 16, I hardly ever, I've never seen it in a promise box.

I've never seen it in little promise Bibles that people have. I've never seen it hung on anybody's, you know, refrigerator, but one of God's promises, Jesus says, in the world, you shall have tribulation.

That's a promise. I've never heard a Christian claim it. I've never heard anybody put it on the refrigerator, Lord, I haven't had a good trial in a month. What's happened? I feel like you've lost, you don't love me.

You're not caring for me. I've never seen anyone claim that, but that is something. The Lord looks at you and says, you will. I will try you. Whom the Lord loves, he chastens, he disciplines. And he says, this is part of your growth.

This is how you grow. It's how you've all grown. You've grown in every other area of your life. You'll grow that way spiritually. But here is, he looks at it, he says, this is how it is. But here he says, though he says, so they're common to man, but secondly, he says, you'll never be tempted above what you're able.

But will with the temptation, make a way of escape that you're able to bear it. In other words, when you join the gym, he also, not only they're common to man, the trials, but secondly, he says, every one of you, you will have a personal trainer.

You'll have somebody there that goes through with you and will watch everything that is going on with you while you're in the gym to make sure that you do not have any more given to you than you're able.

And when we reach that limit, he'll give you a way of escape. Of course, it's the Lord himself who's our trainer. You see, you can go into one of those gyms and maybe you walk by and you go in and you see somebody there.

You'll see some muscle-bound guy who's sitting there on the bench and he's got 300 pounds and he's ripping that thing up. And he lifts that thing and you may say, well, you know, they're common to man.

But I can assure you, that's not common to me. You put 300 pounds on my chest and it's not going to go up. It's going down through my chest and to the floor. It'll cut me in two. But the Lord says, no, no, no, don't worry about it.

This guy didn't start with 300 himself. He started with what he was able to bear and then he built and I built him and built him over time. And so also, you know, with each one of us, he said, I'll take what you're able to bear.

You may look at, he looks at me and says, well, we'll start with 20 pounds with you. See where we go. But at any rate, whatever it is, the Lord looks. And Paul knew. Paul had this tremendous experience and knowledge in Christ and he realized, I will never be given more than I'm able.

And everything out there, I realize now it's common to man. And therefore, Paul, he had this tremendous spiritual assurance in his heart and his life that now he could actually look at anything out there.

And he says, I'm not afraid of anything. Nothing moves me. And it wasn't because of anything internally within him. It was because of the fact that he loved him and gave himself for him. He knew he was committed to him.

He said, I'll never leave you, forsake you, and I'll never give you more than you're able. And but with that, that gave him freedom. It gave him clarity. It gave him boldness. It gave him authority. It gave him conviction.

And he could almost look at any trial, not in pride or in any self-sufficiency and arrogance, but he could look at it and say, nothing moves me. You know, I believe that if we understand this as Paul understood it, every one of us, maybe I believe we can all predetermine right now where you're sitting.

And you can claim that in a sense, that verse in your life to say, you know something, nothing moves me either. Nothing's ever going to move me again because the same God that gave those truths to Paul, he's no respecter of persons and he loves me as he loved him and they're true for me.

Therefore he'll never give me more than I'm able to bear. Therefore I never will go through anything. Therefore even the things that are out there that are yet unknown to me, that want to threaten me or concern me or give me fears, I don't care about them because I know enough from him I'll never have more than I'm able to bear.

He promises it. And here this is one of these wonderful things that Paul wants us to have this sense of. I've got a plaque I've had in my office for almost 40 years. I don't know where it came from. It's just a little plaque, you know, and it had a little saying on it that I've always loved.

It says, the will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you. And that we, if we're living and walking in God's will within our, we need never fear. We realize, God, anywhere you lead me, you're ahead of me, you're behind me, you're all around me.

And you'll, you know, you'll never lead me where your grace cannot keep me. And Paul knew this. So much so that he could look at anything in life and just know whatever came, he was with it. 2 Corinthians 6, Paul says, you know, we give no offense in anything that our ministry may not be blamed.

Oh, but in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God in much patience and tribulations and needs and distresses and stripes and imprisonments and tumults and labors and sleeplessness and fastings by purity, by knowledge, by long suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love.

Paul was able to look there in his life and he says, you know something, not only is he with me, not only nothing moves me, but he looks there and he says, in my life and not of anything that in and of his own self-sufficiency and arrogance or pride, Paul had none of that or nothing that we ever saw.

But he was a man that he was able to say, you know, I've never offended in anything my ministry. I've been able to look back over decades of ministry and all these things. And he says, but in everything I'm in, I've learned how to commend myself, to offer myself over to the Lord as a minister of God.

And it's happened in much tribulations, in patience, in needs, in distresses. I've been in a lot of times where the only thing I could do is just commend myself to God and say, Lord, keep me, Lord, put your hand on me, Lord, get me through this.

Without you, I'm over, it's done. And that's the place most people hate to get, but it's the place where Paul lived commonly. He lived right in the clutches of all of disaster, but it never bothered him because he had this tremendous efficiency and assurance in Christ.

I think we don't live in him like Paul lived in him constantly. I mean, he was in stripes and imprisonments and tumults and labors and sleeplessness, fastings, long suffering. Many times, you know, through much of his life and yet he was somebody, this is my life.

This is what it's all about. I don't mind it at all because he's with me and he lives in me powerfully. And one of Paul's best illustrations, I think, of this truth is the very thing that's going on here in Acts 19 and 20, we haven't got time to look at it.

Paul had actually come earlier to Ephesus and been ministering there. And what a tremendous ministry that happened there. Of course, in Paul's travels, when you follow him through the decades and the years of ministry and the churches that he's planted, Paul was very used to, of course, winning many people to Christ, discipling them, raising up leaders, equipping them for ministry, building churches.

Then he would turn the church over to him and go start again. And one of the reasons he had to turn it over to him is Paul was a man that had to almost operate under the radar, so to speak. All through his life in ministry, the Jews had been hunting him.

They'd been after him. And wherever he would kind of appear and become of note, and then they realized he's there and he's succeeding again, he's built this church, all of a sudden he's on their radar and they'd be after him.

And the next thing you know, he would look there, all right, we've got the church together, we've got the leaders, we've got the body, we're all together, guys, take it. I'm going under the radar again, I'm off, I'm out, and he disappears.

One of the things I think that kept him going was the fact that he was on the hunt all the time, like a wanted man. And so he'd kind of disappear under the radar, reappear there somewhere else, just sharing, preaching, ministering until a new church was built up and done.

And Paul had been through these cycles a number of times. Well, he'd come to Ephesus. Now as he'd come to Ephesus, starts his preaching there, and the ministry in Ephesus goes so phenomenally well, incredibly well.

Here of course, Ephesus, one of the most wicked, sensual cities in the world with the worship of Diana and the temple prostitutes that went on. I mean, there's a corrupt of a city equivalent to anything like a Las Vegas or a city that could have just given itself over to sensuous living.

That's what Ephesus was in its day. And here Paul had come and preached in that city of all places. And as they had planted the church, the church was so incredibly effective that people that made, there was a huge business of people with silversmiths that made all these little gods and goddesses, these little pornographic images that people bought there in their worship of sensuality and perversions of it, that literally these people are going out of business.

You imagine something happening in your town where the gospel became so effective, so powerful that the bars, the pornography, you know, merchants were going out of business. Well, they're so upset about this.

What's going on here? They get a rally going. They get downtown. Literally, we've got to turn this around. We need a revival of Diana. And so they begin, they get downtown, get a rally going downtown.

They grab a hold of a couple of Paul's, you know, traveling companions, you know, going along with him, Gaius and Aristarchus. And he gets them, and Paul's outside. They keep him out. But Paul, they grab them, and they're in downtown, and they're all upset about this.

And for two hours, they're chanting. They're getting the crowd, you know, Great is Diana of the Ephesians! Great is Diana of the Ephesians! Great is Diana of the Ephesians! And they're chanting it. In fact, join me with it.

Great, no, I'm just kidding. But they got a rally going, and they're all shouting this. We've got to get back to Diana. She loves you. Diana cares for you. Come home to Diana and buy our stuff. Well, here as they're doing this, could you imagine how wonderful it would be if that's what occurred in our cities and towns now?

But during these years, Paul had become so hated. And once again, the radar's on him. Once again, they're down. And now Paul realizes he calls the elders of Ephesus together. And here he is to say goodbye to them, turn things over to them.

He tells them in Acts 20, verse 19, he talks about serving the Lord with all humility. Been here with many tears and trials, which happened to me by the plotting of the Jews. In verse 20, he says, How I kept back nothing that was helpful, but I proclaimed it to you.

I taught you publicly from house to house, testifying to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. And he said, See, now I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that change and tribulations await me.

Here, Paul, what was happening is he's coming towards the end of his ministry. The interesting thing, Paul says, You know, I don't for sure know what's happening. He says, However, the Holy Spirit seems to be testifying in every city, telling people the change and tribulations await me.

Paul had had a cycle of people being aware, the church is aware of Paul's departure soon. Paul is about to die. He's coming to the end of his life. And Paul, who had been through so much in life, so many trials, so many tribulations, he says, You know, all I know right now about myself is I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem.

I'm determined to go to Jerusalem. It's just been in me for a long time. I've got to go to Jerusalem. Well, they're thinking, You, you're crazy. You want to go to Jerusalem? The very people that have been hiding you for the last 40 years.

Now you're going to walk in downtown Jerusalem, headquarters of Judaism. The moment you show your face, you're dead. You go there. And they've been trying, they're trying to talk him out. He can't do this.

Paul said, Look, all I know is it's in my heart to do it. And then, but, but then at that point and everybody and they came with chains. They came with all sorts of things. The church did, you know, as they're trying to talk him out of it.

Paul, you're insane. You've got a death wish. And then here at this point, Paul turns and he gives this wonderful statement. He looks there as if to say, You don't get it, do you? You don't know what makes me tick yet, do you?

He looks there and he says, I'm aware of all this. I'm no fool. I'm no idiot. But I'll tell you something. Nothing moves me. Nothing moves me at all. And you know, this verse, I, you know, I'm, I'm sure you've all heard it before.

It's such a dynamic and powerful verse. But it's a verse that literally to me, I mean, it, it changed my life. I, in the 60s, one by one, my parents. First, my parents came to Christ and they were basically a worldly couple.

And my dad was a USC Trojan. If you know, University of Southern California, my, and he's an athlete and an engineer. He had a career going, worldly man, essentially, though. And my mother, a very beautiful woman.

She was homecoming queen at USC. My parents were very attractive. Obviously, you can figure that out. But at any rate, I mean, here they had the world going for them. But now they had four children, one after another, all a year apart.

The pressures of marriage and the stresses of life. They found themselves unable really to handle it at a time when the gospel was really doing a wonderful thing. And the timing was just right. They came to Christ.

Got a brother a year older, brother a year younger, sister a year younger than him. And one by one, my older brother, then my younger sister, then my brother came to Christ. But I didn't. And I would go to church with him now and then.

But I was, I was adventurous. I wanted to be out. Not that I didn't believe. I always believed. I thought I'm a Christian. They said, Don, you're not. That's how we'd argue. But I am too a Christian. You know, I, you know, what do you think?

I got a dot in my forehead here. I'm some sort of, you know, other religion or something. No, I'm a Christian. I was born in America. I got a mother. I eat apple pie. I believe in God. I'm a Christian.

Now leave me alone. And I was essentially kind of at that variety of which there was a lot of in the, at the time in the States. And, but then finally, those times going on and their witness is more powerful within my family.

I did make a decision. I received Christ. There's a bit of a grand crusade. But sadly, at the same time, I lived in one home until I actually got married, basically. And so here, all of my friends through grammar school, high school and college.