At that moment, I remembered: You don’t have a sermon ready even if someone asks you to preach. You don’t know the first thing about preaching, not to mention the second thing!
Still, I felt God wanted me to preach. I just needed material.
I turned on the local Christian radio station, Lifesongs, and listened to four different preachers—Alistair Begg, Charles Stanley, Michael Youseff, and John MacArthur. I took notes on their content and style while working at my father’s Collision Center during the day. They were so powerful in their delivery, yet I could believe God had equipped me to communicate like this.
I’d done well with Network Marketing, the “Closer’s Corner,” and as a DJ. It was all about connecting with people. The big difference was that it was no longer entertainment. The message was about the only things in life that really mattered. I felt I could do this.
I sat down to write a sermon, using the story of Jesus and the two thieves on the cross from Luke 23. It was a story that really touched me. Jesus was crucified between two thieves, one of them cursing him, the other one showing true faith and asking Jesus to remember him in heaven. It was a great way to share the gospel; one of those men was doomed, while the other would live forever in eternity. I could explain the significance of the cross, tell about those two men and their attitudes, and ask, “Which one are you?”
The following week, a man walked up to me at Celebration Church, where I had started attending on Saturday nights, and asked, “Robby, are you a preacher?”
I said, “As a matter of fact, yes, I’m a preacher.” It didn’t occur to me that it’s probably good to have preached at least once before identifying yourself as a preacher, but I was confident I had been called by God.
He told me about the church’s downtown mission, the Brantley Baptist Center. “We feed and shelter people on the streets. Volunteers make the whole thing work—meals, maintenance, preaching. Homeless folks come in and receive a meal. In addition to getting fed physically, they get fed spiritually through the Word, so we’re always looking for someone to come and bring a message. Would you come next week and preach?”
God had heard my prayer.
I told my parents the next day, “Guess what? I’m going to preach at a church service downtown.” They looked at me and wondered one more time if I was on drugs again. They’d been through a few whiplash-turn changes of direction with me, but this one was a bit much. They knew all about priests, but they didn’t know one who’d recently been a drug dealer.
I invited them to come hear me, and of course they did, incredibly curious to see what happened when their son stood up to deliver a sermon. My parents had come dressed in the clothing they’d wear to their own church—slacks, button up shirt, and Florsheims for Dad—and there we were, surrounded by seventy-five homeless people.
It was my trial run; I had no idea what I was doing. What I did have was my story—what it was like to be a two-time slave to drug addiction, and how Jesus had rescued me. I told it all.
When I gave an invitation, seven men stood up with tears in their eyes, came forward, and gave their lives to Christ. You could sense the Lord’s presence in a palpable way. I was thrilled and thankful. For me it was the confirmation that this was what God wanted me to do with the rest of my life.
I celebrated with those new believers, prayed with them, then caught up with my parents in the parking lot. My dad pulled me off to the side and said, “Son, that was very good. But if I were you, I wouldn’t talk publicly about your drug past. I don’t think anyone should hear about that.”
“Dad, I know it seems strange. But you have to understand that my past isn’t something to hide. It’s my story. It shows how great God is, to change someone as messed up as me. The story is all I have, and you see how it can touch people.” He still seemed doubtful.
I preached again at the Brantley Center. My parents showed up again. This time a man stepped forward afterward to shake my hand. His face was worn and tattered, but he looked vaguely familiar somehow. He said, “Robby, you may not remember me, but I used to be married to Dr. Casey.”
Then it all came together. I had once bought all those drugs from Dr. Casey at her all-night clinic. She had a husband who was a police officer and part of her protection. Of course he’d become very wealthy from the scam they had going on. My dad and I had gotten to know him when we fixed up his wrecked BMW, as part of our deal—though Dad had never suspected the real arrangement. To him, it was just another job.
The husband had gotten addicted to drugs himself, as did so many others who got caught up in that world. He’d lost everything, and now here he was, homeless, getting a meal and hearing a sermon at the Brantley Center with other hurting souls. My sermon had meant something to him.
“I appreciate what you’ve shared tonight,” he said. “For the first time in years, I feel hopeful, seeing all that God is doing in you.”
And it was then, for the first time, that it all clicked for my parents. They understood that what I was doing was not another one of their son’s fads. This was real. This was something that had turned my life around, and it could do that for other people, too. They’d seen it with their own eyes. Here was a shady cop, one
