Scott Moore: Welcome to the "Building Faith and Family" podcast with Steve Demme. I'm your host, Scott Moore. Thanks for joining us today. Good morning, Steve. Steve: One week ago today, a really close friend of mine passed away. Scott: Mm-hmm. Sorry.

Steve: I didn't hear about it until the next day. This past weekend, I was out in Pittsburgh for his funeral service, his celebration of life, viewing. We did it all in one shot on Saturday. I had an opportunity to make some notes ahead of time and to think about Joe, and that's what I want to talk about today.

I had the great fortune to know him and to watch him, and his life is an incredible testimony. Let's pray.

"Father, thank You for lives well lived. Thank You for followers of Jesus that began well and finished well and thank You for my brother and my friend. I pray that You'll help us as we contemplate his life today to give proper due. As the Bible says, honor to whom honor is due."

"But we do it with our eyes on Jesus because this man would have been the first one to say, I can't do anything except through Christ and yet what he was able to accomplish made a significant impact for Christ. Help us to do it in such a way that You get the glory and yet we're honest and true with what we know here." In Jesus' name, Amen.

Scott: Amen.

Steve: When I went to college, the first year I played basketball, junior varsity basketball, Joe was a point guard. He was a solid guy. I don't know where his nickname emerged, but his nickname was Squeak. He was about six feet, but he only weighed probably, I don't know, 150, 160, something like that. He was thin. You wouldn't have known that if you'd ever gone to his house, which I had the privilege to do and have a meal cooked by his Italian mother. I am going to use some numbers that I know were true.

When we got there, and I think there was six or seven of us. There were five or six guys, and one guy's girlfriend. She made a feast, and she sat right across the table from me and did not eat, instead she watched me to make sure that I had two helpings of everything.

I remember when she brought out this big pan of meatballs that were a couple inches in diameter. These were not little things that you pop in your mouth. You had to eat a meatball. There were 70 of those, seven-zero. You do the math. That's 10 apiece. There's no way that any one of us could have eaten 10 meatballs.

Then, the salads. And lasagna pans. Two big pans of lasagna. Are you getting the picture? Then, the Jello. Then, when I thought, I can't eat any more food, she brought out homemade donuts. Goodness gracious. You can't leave those alone. I ate some, and I went out on the sidewalk in front of their house and lay down because I couldn't move, and my stomach was distended.

Steve: Yet, Joe, he was 160 dripping wet. Anyway, he got the nickname Squeak. He was a good ball player, and he was a better man. Freshman year went into sophomore year, and God was working in my heart because I had responded to the gospel before I went to college, but when I got there, I joined this certain fraternity, and there was only one really committed fly-your-flag solid guy, Danny, who was a believer. He grew up in a Christian home, never sowed his wild oats, solid all the way through, still is to this day. Danny and Squeak became good friends. I remember my sophomore year going to a Billy Graham movie downtown with those two guys. I'm sure these guys were praying for me, and I responded, but then I waffled in my faith which continued through my junior year.

In my senior year, God got a hold of me right when I left my junior year. I put down the book, "The Cross and the Switchblade," which I'd been reading in preparation for a camp. I said, "OK, God. Here we go." I had a couple months under my belt when I got back in the fall. Couldn't wait to see these guys and tell them, "Hey. I'm a follower of Jesus too."

At the same time, Rick and Andy joined our fraternity. Now there was Joe, Danny, myself, Rick, and Andy, and we became a great team. Every great team has different components. I don't want to go into each one of them, but we all had different gifting, and we melded, and we are still close to this day.

Rick was in India this past week. He's not coming home till next week. He was hoping to be at the funeral. Danny, Andy and I were there. God created something that year at college. We began meeting together for Bible studies. We had some with our the president of our college, some at another professor's house. Every opportunity we had, we were going to chapel together, where we had an outstanding chaplain. It was an awesome time, and we grew in our faith. R.C. Sproul was in our neck of the woods. That first Christmas from December 26th to the 31st, he sponsored an event called "How to grow as a Christian." I spent five days there at the Ligonier study center. I think it was the first year they did it with R.C. Sproul and a couple other guys, how to read your Bible, how to pray. It was solid meaty teaching.

The end of that spring, we started thinking about having a retreat. I knew of a good place for a Christian retreat down in Uniontown called Jumonville, and we had a retreat and we advertised it. No booze, books, or broads, just Bibles. We were wet behind the ears. I've talked about this before, I'm sure, but it was a wonderful time.

Each one of the five of us taught a session. We had Doctor Demme, Doctor Thompson, Doctor Ionta, etc.

We were zealous, but we were committed, and we were green. I remember when I was doing one of the first sessions, I talked about the Pharisees and the Sadducees. There was one of the professors that actually come with us on the retreat. He looked at me, and everybody thought I'm making fun. I wasn't making fun. I didn't know how to pronounce Sadducee. So I said the Sudukis. When they finally figured out that I was serious, goodness gracious, the tears were flowing. The professor who had joined us, he was beside himself laughing.

One of the guys that laughed the hardest was Rick Hivner, who has spent decades in India working with bringing upper caste Hindus to Christ. He did his workshop, and he referred to "The Book of Malachi as Ma-latch-ee.“ I got to give it back to him. One of the roles that Joe played in our team of 5 was his meekness. He was humble. He was himself, comfortable in his own skin. I mean, half the size of me, and yet he was my Nathan. When I would mess up, which I did, Joe would look me in the eye, and with love, confront me. He would point out where I had messed up. It was a gift to have him in my life.

There are some people that do that and you want to hit them. He had a gift. He was able to do it without being contentious. He looked you in the eye and said, "You know, Dem, you should have done this, this, this," and it was awesome. During that retreat, God met us and at the end of our year, there were 14 men that had made a commitment to Christ. I still see these guys to this day, and many of them point to that year when God got a hold of them. Now that they're elders in their church, one guy's a professor at a Christian seminary, it was awesome. This was our team. I want to focus on Joe because Joe was an integral part of us. By the way, we had the same retreat the next year after three of us had graduated. I drove all the way back from New England. On that particular trip, I was praying for a certain amount of money to pay my rent when I got back.

While I was there, Joe handed me a wad of twenties. I stuck it in my pocket. I didn't count it till I got back, and it was the exact amount of money that I needed to pay my rent. That's the kind of guy he was. Nothing was said. Here Dem, gave me a wad of twenties, which was exactly what I needed.

Almost every time I drove to Pittsburgh to visit my mom or dad I would make it a point to call Squeak. We often got together with Danny and Andy.

When Joe graduated from college, right away, he became a teacher. He worked for Plum School District. It's right outside of Pittsburgh near Monroeville. He was a math teacher. Most importantly, he was a coach of, I believe, cross country, track, and for many years, even basketball.

If you've ever been involved in athletics like this, it takes a couple hours a day on top of your workday to be a coach. As I made my forays back to Pittsburgh, I began to learn some new vocabulary. First of all, he was not Squeak anymore. He was Coach I. That's what everybody called him, Coach I. He would use words like "Look at you. Look at you," which cracked me up.

Then he would use an expression “TOOC” which meant “totally out of control.” He was always telling me, Dem, you're totally out of control. Not only did he coach for 40 years, even when he retired, he continued to coach after school hours. He coached until he couldn't. He coached until he was physically unable.

He was diagnosed with leukemia, but somehow kind of a mild form way back when he was in college. In later years it began to emerge and eventually killed him, but it was a journey. As long as he had breath, he was going to be coaching.

When I got to the funeral home relatively early for the viewing, there was already a line out the door, and I got one of the last parking spots. The place was filled. I stood next to a man who's 54 years old, and I said, "How did you know Joe?" He said, "He coached me, and he coached my two sons." So, he reached multi generations. There were thousands of people that he coached, and a lot of them, he coached the whole family for two generations.

He became a legend. He ended up being inducted into their hall of fame. He was honored in the WPIAL, which is the western part of the state.

I sat next to a coach that he coached with -- one of the many coaches that he coached with -- during the lunch afterwards. He told me story after story. He said, if you told a bad joke or if you were talking in class, Joe would walk over and push your shoulder. He said, that's the mute button.

It was quirky, but it was Joe. It was his way of going through life, and he had such a big heart. People were telling me that, oh, he and his wife kind of adopted my children, and they would bring over Christmas gifts. Joe liked the Olive Garden. When people didn't know what to get him, but they wanted to buy him a gift or a present, they'd give him Olive Garden gift cards.

This coach told me that one day, Joe took the whole track team to Olive Garden. When he went to pay the bill, he reached into his pocket, and he brought out a handful of gift cards. The coach said when it was all over, I think it cost Joe eight dollars. He used all of his gift cards up to feed the team.

Joe was also a faithful. I know that's the word that you're probably thinking of, and I'm going to say it more than once. He was a faithful husband to Linda. He was a faithful church member, where they went to the same church for over 40 years. Even when the neighborhood demographics began to change, and it wasn't the safest place to go to church. "No. We're gonna go there."

I talked to Linda, his wife, during the service, and I said, "Why did you guys choose that church?" She says, "Well, actually, I did. I was there first." I said, "What year was that?" She told me she's been going to that church for 55 years and Joe went there for about 50 because they were married a couple years after she'd already started going there.

The church was impacted by these guys. Joe was a Sunday school teacher. He did men's Bible studies. One of the men that stood up and spoke said, we would go to his house for a men's Bible study. And Joe would say, "Well, let's pick a book." Then he'd say, "OK. Philippians." [laughs]

Everybody laughed because that was his favorite book. This man that was talking said - I have been through Philippians so many times, and Joe's Bible is all marked up. He loved Philippians.

I'm trying to give an impression that he was a faithful man. I mean, how many people do you know started and stopped teaching at the exact same school, went to the same church, and impacted generations of people? He was faithful, but he was also -- I don't want to use the word too much, lest you think he's a little interesting -- but he was unique. He was himself, and he had that mute button thing.

One of the men that I met who he had coached his sons too, he looked at me and he says, yeah. My name is Gwen, but he called me the mighty Quinn or Quinn the medicine woman. He would make up these crazy nicknames, and somebody else's name was Brooke, and he called them “Brooker” T. Washington.

Anyway, the point was he was himself. If you met him, you wouldn't have been totally impressed, but you'd have seen a really great smile. He was one of the most encouraging, affirming men I've ever met. When we couldn't even get together because we lived a couple hundred miles apart, I'd make some trips out once in a while to see him, but I would call him pretty regularly.

He would always affirm what I was doing and encourage me. One of the awards he got for the Western Pennsylvania was for being the a positive influence as a coache. He was honored with a group of other coaches.

That's my friend. That's my friend, Joe, and he was a good man. I'm sure he had his faults, and I'm sure he had his ups and downs, but very few people saw them. When I would ask him about his health, because he was going down hill the last few years, he always responded the same way. "God is in control." He said it with conviction. God is in control.

Boy, if I had been in his shoes, would I have been able to positively affirm that? I don't know. At his funeral, one of the verses that was read was from Philippians 1:21. "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." He told Andy, one of our five buddies, he said

that verse has taken out a whole new meaning the last few years to me. “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

What I thought about Joe, I thought about another set of scriptures. In the Book of Revelation, more than once, Jesus is referred to as faithful and true. Joe was like his Savior. This is how Jesus was. Jesus started something, and He finished it, and He never swerved. He kept His face set like flint. He told His disciples, "I'm going to Jerusalem." They said, "Well, you're gonna die there."

"It's OK. I need to die. That's why I came." He never swerved. There's a hymn that has always been very special to me, and the chorus goes like this. "Not to the strong is the battle, not to the swift is the race, but to the true and the faithful, victory is promised through grace."

Now Joe was a runner. He not only coached cross country and track, he liked to run himself. He ran for decades. He's one of the most in shape, older guys you'd ever want to meet. He not only ran well, he finished well. That's the thing that's getting me today as I'm contemplating his life and his death.

Paul says, "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith." Joe was solid in his faith walk for the over 50 years that I knew him. It says in Hebrews 12, "Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, (guys like him, he's a witness to me now. He's in heaven watching me finish my race) Let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely. Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us."

Joe, I’m thankful I had the privilege to know you. Glad that God brought you into my life and into the lives of thousands of people who loved you for your uniqueness, for your commitment, for your faithfulness, for your true walk with God, and for using the gifts that God gave you to bless a whole bunch of people.

He would have even told you, I don't have that many gifts. Well, maybe he didn't, but he certainly knew how to reach people. You feel like you know my brother now, Scott, a little bit?

Scott: Sounds like a life well lived.

Steve: It was a life well lived. I wish now I have a bunch of questions for him . I didn't know Philippians was his favorite book. I looked at Andy, we were sitting together at the service. I said, "Did you know Philippians was his favorite book?" He said, "No." I did like meeting a whole bunch of his former students. Anytime I was in line with people, I would ask them, how do you know Joe? One fella came in. He's taller than me. I said, well, I know you played ball. He said, yeah. Joe was my eighth grade basketball coach. He always made us look you in the eye and shake your hand with a firm handshake.

Now see, that's the kind of stuff that he passed on to people and then they pass that on to their kids.

Steve: So, the ripple effect of a man, then, faithful. He was at his post, never left it, never had great ambitions, never became a principal, he stayed at his post and look at the thousands of people, literally thousands that his life impacted. Because he had cancer, he had a race that he sponsored, I think they said at the funeral which raised almost a quarter of a million dollars for cancer research. What a guy.

Steve: Oh, I will tell you he was a great roommate. We roomed together one semester in college, because he had that wonderful Italian mother who loved to pamper him. He would bring back a box. Don't picture a box the size of a normal box. These are like massive boxes, bigger than a banana box. It would be full of food, pies. It's the first time I ever saw pomegranates. I didn't know you could eat pomegranates, but pomegranates, and pies and lasagna, pan of lasagna. Great roommate, because he would share with us.

Scott: Nice.

Steve: Let's pray. "Father, thank You for my friend. Thank You for my brother. Thank You for Your adopted son. Thank You for the testimony that he is to all of us of being faithful and true, not only at the beginning, but at the end, he lived the life that glorified you that helped people."

"He put others ahead of his own desires and needs. A faithful husband, a faithful church member and I'm happy to honor him today." In Jesus' name, Amen. Scott: Amen. That's our show for this week, folks. Thanks for joining us for the Building Faith and Family podcast with Steve Demme. If you have a question for the show, email Steve at spdemme@Gmail.com. Thanks for joining us. Have a great week.