CR Sunday | November 9 2025

Hi, I'm John Wonderful. Probably noticed actually,

before you even say anything. Turn with me in your Bibles,

would you? To the letter of First Timothy.

First Timothy, you probably noticed I got a bit of a frog.

A frog, a frog and my throat. And the cold bug is knocking on

my door here. Just greeted me this morning and

I said hey, not not 100%, she says.

I already knew that I am not 100% appreciate Jess and her

humor and everything that she's doing with CR Jill, the team,

you guys have just been awesome and it is a is a pleasure just

to be talking specifically about CR this morning, dedicating this

Sunday to it. We have we've heard some

testimonies already through some of these video clips and Henry,

what you were sharing. Thank you for that Devo Devo

devotional. And if you're a follower of

Jesus Christ, you have a testimony.

And so I would just ask you, what is your testimony?

What is your testimony? When I talk about testimony,

there's a number of different ways that's used and maybe

testimonial maybe the the better word to be using.

But testimony can refer to our life like our spiritual journey,

how I became a Christian and that's what we're talking about

the profession of faith classes after the service.

But I'm not specifically talking about that.

I'm just talking about testifying to God at work in my

life. How is God at work in my life?

How do I, how can I explain the the the intersection between my

knee, my need, and the grace of God at work in my life?

Particularly if you are a follower of Jesus, if you are a

Christian, you have a testimony. Testimonies are so powerful.

They're incredibly powerful and it's really the key, or one of

the keys anyway, to the success of the Celebrate Recovery

Ministry. Learning to be open about our

lives, learning to share the struggles that we have in our

lives, learning to be real with one another.

And we need more of that. We need more of that.

You might think to yourself, OK, you know, do I have a testimony?

I there's, there's no way I could stand up in front of

people and share something like that so, so deeply.

Do not sell yourself short. You and I as followers of Jesus

Christ, if you're a follower, you were made for this.

You were made for this. So this morning, all I wanna do

just for a few minutes, briefly share about why we share

testimonies and how we can do a better job of sharing

testimonies. All right.

So, Father, as we, as we open this glorious word that you've

given to us, we pray that you'd send your Holy Spirit to us in

the name of Jesus, awaken us to the things that you want us to

see, to know, and to live out. For your namesake we pray.

Amen. First Timothy chapter 1.

1 Timothy 1 · chapter mention

We're just reading 2 verses, verse 15 to 17 or 15 to 16.

First Timothy chapter 1, starting at verse 15.

1 Timothy 1 · chapter mention

This is the apostle Paul speaking.

He says here is a trustworthy scene that deserves full

acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world

to save sinners, of whom I am the worst, but for that very

reason, I have shown mercy so that in me the worst of sinners,

Christ Jesus might display His immense patience as an example

for those who would believe in Him and receive eternal life.

I love Paul, you know, as you read his letters, he, he's, he's

a very intense individual and he's, he's got a purpose for

every letter that he writes. But every once in a while in the

middle of his argument, he just kind of breaks into praise of

God. And, and it's celebrating this

incredible news that, and this is what he's saying, that God

has come to meet us in our struggles and he has come to

save sinners, to minister to us, to heal us, to not just

confront, but to comfort us and to restore us, transform us to

become more like him that Jesus, the whole, his whole plan was to

come and to save us, to help us. Every single one of us can be

labeled a Sinner. All of us have fallen short of

the glory of God. And in the Apostle Paul, he's

just not apologetic about that at all.

But I want to. I just want to highlight 2 words

in these verses. The words I am in verse 15.

So Paul says Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,

of whom I am the worst. You know, if you know Paul, Paul

had a pretty incredible past. He was a very uptight, very

religious, very legalistic Pharisee.

And he was actually so much so he was persecuting the Church of

Jesus Christ until God awakened him and showed him the light.

But he was, he was a bad dude, a bad religious dude.

So we had a horrible past, but Paul doesn't say Christ Jesus

came into the world to save sinners, of whom I was the

worst. What does he say?

It's in the present tense. Of whom I am the worst, like

currently. This is such a critical point

because Paul realized that as many of the bad things that he

had done in the past, currently, right now he saw himself as the

worst of sinners. Now, how could Paul, such a

spiritual giant, speak like that?

How can he say that? Because the more mature we get

in Christ, the more time we spent with the Sinless 1, we see

the flaws in ourselves more and more.

And he couldn't, he couldn't not see that.

And so This is why he's just blown away by the mercy of God,

not just that showed up way back on the road of Damascus, but

now, like now, God was showing in his showing his mercy.

In fact, the way he describes it is, is that Jesus is displaying

his immense patience for Paul even now.

When we come, when we can come to that place, we realize the

flaws, the flaws in me, Mr. John Digiovanni, when the flaws in me

are covered by Jesus Christ, that that he knows me through

and through, He knows. He knows flaws that I know

nothing about in me, and he loves me so, and he's come to

save me from that. It changes everything, even the

way that I relate to people. This is what Paul is is is

describing here. And so God was using his life,

not just his past but his present, as an example to

display his immense patience for human beings.

He is using Paul's life as a way to help other people to come to

know God and enter into relationship with him as an

encouragement. We all need that and that became

a passion for his life. Your next chapter 20.

He says, you know, my only aim is to finish the race and

complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me here.

It is the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace.

That's what he was all about. I just want to testify.

I want to make known. I wanted to clear the good news

of God's grace that is all over my life.

He talks about it in in his other letters, Second

Corinthians, particularly this point, he talks about this

treasure that we have in jars of clay, this power of God at work

in us. But we're jars of clay, we're

weak, we're frail, we're flawed, but the grace of God is working

on me. Even says later in that letter

that he talks about that the the the power of God is made perfect

in my weakness. And that is the reality for

every single one of us. You know, the beauty of God's

goodness and his kindness and his patience with us is on

display through the backdrop of our brokenness and and and

flawed personalities and lives. This is what he's doing, and so

it's so powerful when we share our struggles.

I used to think that after coming to Jesus, my life has to

be all together. And my testimony was that my

life was together. And I don't know if you've ever

felt that before, but the the pressure is on to live a kind of

a perfect life because I want to be a good testimony to other

people. This is my this is my young

Christian life. And so the temptation is to hide

who I really am. Because if you really saw my

flaws and you thought and you're a Christian, like seriously, you

know, I'm not going to believe in your gut that that's kind of

the fear. But actually the opposite is

true. When people see our flaws and

how the grace of God is operating on us, that's what

like that, that's suddenly there's a human connection going

on. I remember when I was working

out in the in the front yard one day and my garage door was open

and my neighbor came by and he says, ah, looking at your garage

makes me feel so much better about my own right.

And I never thought of it as like, you know, OK, so you know,

rather than trying to make my garage look wonderful for the

whole world to see that oht man, he must be a wonderful guy and

and a great Christian because there's look at his garage.

It's so much in order, right? Actually, the opposite is true.

It's not that we try to mess it up on purpose, but we want to be

real, right? And, and it and it was, it

taught me that day that when my life is not fully together, I

can actually relate to people more that people can relate to

me more as a, as a human being. And so, man, my flaws on display

you, I mean, for those of you that call forest be home, you,

you get my flaws every every Sunday morning.

But this is the partial Paul, the way that he is operating,

that God is displaying his immense patience with me, and

that I am currently, as he sees it, the worst of sinners through

his fellowship with the perfect God.

No, it's not for any of us that OK.

My testimony is that I was really bad and then all of a

sudden God made me good and everything's good now.

It's that sanctification has begun.

It's begun. It's not finished until the day

I meet Jesus face to face, but it's begun.

And the call is like, so come along with me, come along with

me. This is how God is changing my

life. This is how God is working in my

life. Come on with me and let's

encourage one another in the way of Jesus Christ.

Celebrate. Recovery is just all over that.

It's about coming out if I can use that language like I'm a

human being and I have flaws and my life is unmanageable in

particular areas and I need help.

And you know what? I'm a human being just like

anybody else. That's our predicament, you

know. That's why we we read over,

heard, heard it read what you just touched when those

principles were shared this morning.

Like anyway, Principle 4, this is how it's put, and this week

this is where we see it. You know, I will openly examine

and confess my faults to myself, to God and someone I trust.

Beautiful. It's based on step five of the

12 step program. You know, we admit to God, to

ourselves and to another human being, the exact nature of our

wrongs that there's there's something about confessing,

there's something about admitting that brings healing.

And this is what James is talking about in chapter 5 of

James when he says, you know, therefore confess your sins to

one another, to each other and pray for each other so that you

may be healed. There's healing in that and and

CR just takes that very seriously.

That healing is not just for us who share, but it's actually for

others who are sharing things too.

That there's, there's, there's, there's something that happens

when we're honest about our struggles.

There's a real human connection that takes place.

It's like a sacred moment that happens.

And for those of you who have joined new life groups this

fall, you're probably around the time when things are starting to

open up. People are starting to open up.

A lot of this last Wednesday in our life group just started

opening up about where their desires are gone, have gone

wayward. It's powerful time.

This is where ministry happens. In fact, part of the testimony.

It's not just so much that, hey, I know that, you know, you know,

God is meeting me in this particular place.

Sometimes we can't even see where God is meeting us in our

struggle, but we share our struggle anyway.

And it's in the midst of that, when we're in community with

other believers, fellow strugglers, that we begin to

experience the grace of God through support and through

encouragement, and then through their prayers, and we see God

moving. It's all kind of working

together. So when people begin to open up

to you because we as the Church of Jesus Christ, we're far from

perfect, but we would just want to get better and better and

better to open up with each other, but also to hear others

open up to us and we what few things we need to resist.

We need to resist the strong temptation to fix their problem,

solve their problem. You know that that that that

temptation is strong or to minimize the problem, like, oh,

come on, That's not you know, or compare the problem.

Oh, you think that's bad way to hear right.

You know we do. That's what we do.

But to listen and embrace and to enter into their vulnerability,

it's something that is a bit sometimes counterintuitive, but

the more that we practice, the better, the better it gets.

We were meant to share the journey together, encourage one

another daily, and we do that through our testimony.

So if you're a follower of Jesus, you have a testimony to

share. You do so.

How do we get better at this? Um, I believe strongly that the

way we get better at sharing testimony is just by doing it

and that we were made to do it. That really it's more about

removing barriers to doing it than anything else.

You know, the heavens declare the glory of God, the skies

proclaim the work of his hands, like all creation is declaring

the glory of God. Just that's that's what creation

does and that's what we were meant to do too.

And so I believe that we were meant to share this.

And so it's just about removing barriers.

I just want to just kind of close with just a few barriers.

What the number one barrier to it that I believe we need to

overcome is pride. That's a big word.

We don't solve that problem. And just like a 60 seconds of a

sermon, but just that idea that, you know, I don't even know my

need. I don't, I don't know my need

for the grace of God. So different from the Apostle

Paul. Well, Apostle Paul, there was a

time in his life someone's got to get that to time.

There's a time in Paul's life when he didn't know that he was

in need of the grace of God until the grace of God hit him.

And then he realised, OK, wow, right.

Or sometimes we even deny that we need we can't we can't admit

that we need the grace of God. Remember a regular attender

Deforest View was struggling with alcohol and come to church

inebriated and you could just smell it on them right and and

I'll just say this. You are most welcome if you're

an equated to come to church like we, we our doors are open

to everybody like you are most welcome.

But in walking with this individual and, and, and, and in

those moments when they show up, it's like, you know, have you

been drinking? No, but I, I, I know that you

have been right. So there was this real denial,

and part of the AA program is there is an admission, you know,

hi, I'm John, and I'm an alcoholic.

That there's something powerful about admitting, like getting

over the pride of that. I have to have it all.

I'm an alcoholic and this person refused to admit that and as a

result the marriage was ruined. The whole life was torn apart,

hit rock bottom and finally I'm an alcoholic.

And that's when life began to turn around for them.

Now, one of the beautiful things that I appreciate about

Celebrate Recovery is it's so it's not we we don't introduce

ourselves as I'm an alcoholic. It's no, I'm a, I'm a grateful

believer in Jesus Christ. My identity is not my alcohol,

my identity is is in Jesus Christ.

But I struggle with these things and I'm celebrating the recovery

that God has given me in these things.

So it's a bit different, but that introduction that we give

it does a couple of things. One is it wakes us up out of our

denial. You know, every time someone

comes to the platform or introduces themselves, you get,

I'm a grateful follower of Jesus Christ.

And these are the areas that I'm celebrating recovery in.

It it it, it turns the tables and it reminds us all to get out

of that place of denying. Like this is not about trying to

be proud or putting on a good show.

This is who I am. And it also, this is for

ourselves, but it's also for each other and saying, you know,

we're in this thing together, we're in this thing together.

And so let's let's journey and, and, and through these struggles

together. So pride is the first thing

that's gotta go. Second is fear.

And So what will people think of me if they really knew this

stuff, right? Or shame, just that that idea of

of, you know, I, I feel naked if I was to share this stuff with

somebody else. And this is where Paul's words

in First Timothy are so powerful.

I am the worst of sinners. He was not ashamed to be able to

say that. He knew that.

And as a result of that, he got abuse.

He got criticism. He, you know, he, he encountered

so much and it's like, OK, lay it on me cause I probably

deserve that and more. I remember I actually, I

probably mentioned a number of times Charles Spurgeon when he

was told criticisms about himself by other people, hey,

people are saying this and this and this about you.

And he's known for saying, essentially, you know, they

don't even know the half of it. You know, if they really knew

how I was, you know, you know, they think far worse of me than

they do, right? That's the approach.

That's the approach. And when we get to that place of

knowing, you know what, that there's, there's nothing that

someone can find out about me. There's already been forgiven by

my God and that the grace of Jesus Christ is coming.

There's nothing that can discount me.

That's a beautiful place to be in.

I do not have to fear anymore. I have to fear shame anymore.

I can be moving forward. Last thing I'll just point out,

and that is what I call sterile theology, still theology, this

idea that I believe that God is just too wholly to get his hands

dirty into in the the everyday life of sinners.

That is just simply not true. He is sovereign over all and

when we look we can see his fingerprints and everything.

You know, one of the great sayings of CR is that God never

wastes hurt. In other words, no matter what

kind of hurt that we have experienced in life, even

through that God is going to do powerful healing work, He is

always at work. So we need to kind of keep our

eyes open for how is God at work here.

Sometimes things happen in our life.

We think God could never, God's nowhere to be found here.

God, in His great mercy, His grace is close to us, and He's

gonna work through every tragedy, every hurt, every hang

up, every bad habit. He's gonna use all this stuff

for if we'll put our trust in Him, check our sterile anthology

at the door, and put our trust in Him.

How is he at work? How is he at work?

That's the question to be asking.

How is he at work in my life? And how can I begin to share

that? So here's the application.

Just start, start sharing, start opening up to people about your

life being real, and that can be scary at times.

Start with someone whom you trust.

Maybe it's a spouse, hopefully it's a spouse, but maybe it's a

spouse or a good friend, maybe with your life group and to

begin to share some of the fine China of your life with them.

Maybe we've been hurt in the past and and that that's burned

us before was just dwell on the words of the apostle Paul and

the immense patience that God has for us and that his grace is

sufficient. It is power is going to be made

perfect in our weakness begin to open up more and more and make

that a habit maybe come to Celebrate Recovery.

Beautiful mutually supportive environment where this kind of

thing is encouraged and supported in a confidential

environment. Beautiful thing.

Let's pray, Father. Thank you for the gift that

you've given to each one of us in community under the grace of

Jesus Christ. Thank you, Lord, that you came

to save sinners, of whom I can say I'm the worst.

Thank you for ministering to me and my flaws.

Thank you for your immense patience for me, granting me a

heart that is willing to share honestly, openly about how

things really are in my life, and to trust the Lord that Your

grace is sufficient to meet me in everything.

Give us, give us some, give us knowledge of the testimony that

we have of the saving grace of God that hasn't stopped working

in our lives, that we prayed in Jesus name.

Hey, man.