Milagro En Proceso | Generosidad Contagiosa | Pastor Jeremy DeWeerdt

Hello City First Church, how are you today? I'm so excited to have you here in the church. And believe it or not, it's already the week of Thanksgiving, the turkey week. Who of you are excited about Thanksgiving? I don't know who in charge of cooking the turkey. You are responsible for that important work. That's awesome. I told Jen that I would be in charge of cooking the turkey and she said, good, very good. Just don't talk to him, don't evangelize him because he's going to be very dry. My kids would say that's a dad joke, but you know what? I'm proud of that joke. Well, I'll say this. We're in this series called The Miracle, Doing Miracles. And we're in our hearts, and we're talking about generosity, right? We're talking about generosity, right? This topic of generosity. So we're in this series called The Miracle in Construction. And this is something that's a big one because we do it every year. And every year I explain it. So for those of you who have been a part of City First for many years, you've heard me say, well, you know,

well, I'm going to explain it for the new people. Every December, we give our best and first Christmas gift to God through his church. And what that does is that legacy miracle is that we can actually do different things and finance what we're going to do next year, like our Ministry of Compassion, when we give food, we give food to 750 families on Tuesday. And that is, in part, due to last year, the offering that we took last year. We had these empowerment centers, or we're planting churches, or we're helping people who, for example, there's a hurricane or a tornado, we can help and bring even a hygiene team to that place quickly because the people who are in need of generosity at the end of the year here, or people like, things like the ones you heard, gifts for children who don't generally have the opportunity to have gifts. It all goes to important things, but it's a miracle, a miracle in construction. And we come together and we say, God, we're going to be generous. And God does miracles in construction. And God does miracles with that generosity. He provides help and hope to literally tens of thousands of people

in the next 365 days. But it also does a miracle in our heart. It makes us understand the blessings that have been given to us, not just because we're selfish or not, but it makes a difference. So, we're going to talk about this contagious generosity. It's contagious generosity. And sometimes in life, there are things that can be contagious. Intermediately, people think negative when I talk about this word. There's a story that happened with Jenny and I on December 2011. We decided that we were going to fly to New York on a plane. My son, Paxton, was two months old. And he was born with Down syndrome. And we were going to hop a plane to New York. And there was a church boy in New York that came out of the church that planted a church in New York. And they were living in Manhattan and they also had kids with special needs. So, Jenny and I were going to O'Hare early. We were going to hop on the plane. And it turned into one of those days, you know, nightmares. The flight was delayed, delayed. They canceled it.

They put us on another flight. They canceled it again. I mean, it was really a nightmare. So, sadly, we did get off the plane and we were able to fly to New York. And when we were making our descent to the airport there, we actually ran into the storm that was delaying all the flights. It was horrible. It was a violent turbulence. It was a very violent turbulence. And you're there grabbing the seat. People are screaming. It's like a movie. And as the pilot was trying to get there, he kept trying to get back because it wasn't safe to land, and there was wind, and we were trying over and over again to land, and finally, it happened. Someone lost their cookies. And so it began to be like a symphonic orchestra. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, all of the plane, like some of you guys know, you say, you throw up, I throw up, right? That's what I'm saying, that's what was going on. And literally, it became contagious, and I was covering my ears

because there were a lot of people who were losing their food at that moment, and it began to be contagious. So people started to throw up, and that's when this started, right? Sometimes we start to think that the contagious is the negativity, the fear. But I want to read it today in a different way and categorize it in a positive way because there are things that can be positively contagious, like, for example, when it comes to generosity and making a difference. The Bible talks about this in the Old Testament, where there was a contagious generosity where the people of God came and kind of built a tabernacle in the middle of the desert as they were going to the Promised Land. And in Exodus, it says the following, it says, then Moses said to the whole community, this is what the Lord has said, he says, take a sacred offering for the Lord. Yeah, here's the thing, they wanted to put together a sacred offering for God where there could be praise, and that he could receive the praise and be glorified. Notice what the Bible says. The Bible says the offering would be sacred. The word sacred means holy, holy, holy. What does that mean? It means to be set apart.

So this offering was going to be sacred, it was going to be holy, it was going to be set apart from the other sacrifices, so to speak. And I would just say we can learn from this one, when we give, we're not just giving our money or our resources. Every week, at the end of the year, in these miracle offerings, it's set apart from the rest of our giving. What we give is holy in the eyes of God, sacred. Our money does a lot of things. Our money buys the clothes you're wearing. Our money buys food, it buys gas, it buys cell phones, it buys all kinds of TV shows. But the portion that we give to God through the church, that portion is holy, it's different, it's an offering. When it's set apart from other things, money that you give to Netflix or to the bank or to Target, it's sacred when you give to God. It's holy, it's a portion of the offering. And it becomes tangible, not just theoretically, but tangible when we release what God has entrusted to us. And that's why, when it's sacred and worship, it has to be attached to our heart. It has to serve our worship. In fact, we see it in history, in Exodus 2.35, it says, let those with generous hearts, not with generous minds, not with generous wallets, not with generous hands, but generous hearts,

present the following offerings to the Lord. The heart is very important in the process. Because let me tell you this, as your pastor, you should never give to the City First church because someone forces you to do it. Never, never. You should not give a penny to this church if you don't want to do it. Or if someone forces you or if they bend your arm. We don't do it that way. But if someone were to tell you to give it by force, no. You don't give to anyone if they force you or they bend your arm. That's not giving with the heart. The Bible says it this way. Paul talks in the New Testament. He tells me, he says, he says, Look in your heart how much to give and you don't give in response to the pressure. Because God loves a person who gives generously. If your heart isn't in it, the giving becomes a payment instead of a reward. If your heart isn't in it, it becomes something you have to do out of obligation. It's not an offering. And the giving loses its glory. God says, it's holy, it's sacred. Have you ever received a Christmas present from someone you know?

They bought the present because they had to do it, right? It was what they had to do, it was their obligation. They were just checking the box on the list. Their heart wasn't there, or even worse, this happened to me. There were people who have given me a gift and when I saw the name of the person who gave the present, they were just giving a gift to someone else because there was the name of the other person. Oops, imagine. How does it make you feel if someone gives you something just because they have to do it or because it's an obligation? When I give you a gift, I give you. Look, I want you to really think about this. What does the person want? I want the gift to come out of my heart because when they receive that gift, my heart goes with that gift for them. And in the same way, God wants our heart to be part of this offering, not out of obligation, not because, oh, not because of that. Or because, oh, it gives me an advantage in taxes. No, it's because our heart is there. In fact, in Exodus 5, it says, the whole community of Israel came back, right? And it says, all whose hearts were moved and whose spirits were moved. It says, the hearts were moved, the spirits were moved. It says, they came and brought the heart and the spirit were moved.

They came back with sacred offerings to the Lord. They brought all the materials they needed to lift the tabernacle to perform the ceremonies and this sacred. Many of them responded, not all of them. God invites, it's clear who's ready to move and who's content to watch. And God's goal is not equal amount of the same sacrifice, but rather equal participation and equal sacrifice. That's his goal. It's like we should say, it's part of this and you could make a difference in the name of Jesus. Years ago, I remember hearing a story in our champion's club for special needs kids. We have special needs kids on Sundays and it's specifically designed for those kids who don't have special needs. And the kids can go there, it's safe. And one of our champions, her name is Gracie. She and her mom were going to come to the church. She was so excited to come. And so she said to Gracie that she's got her gifts, she's got her little monkeys ready for the church. And Gracie's mom was like, Gracie, you can't bring this to the church. You can bring one thing. And so Gracie brought a little bag. And so they came to the champion's club and she turned to her mom and she said, Gracie has unzipped her little bag

and she saw that she had a lot of money in there. And she said, where'd you get that? And so she kind of like, you know, gently says to Gracie, let me grab your little bag, Gracie, while we're going to the church. And Gracie's like, nope. And the mom says, okay, it's fine, whatever. Gracie goes into the champion's club, into the little room, the mom comes to the service. And while Gracie's there, she said to some of the leaders that if she could offer a little box, and the leader was kind of like, hey, we don't take an offering here at the champion's club. And so she just went to get a little bucket because nobody wanted to give her one. And she set it up and put it on the table. And she said, look, Gracie, here's the bucket you wanted. She went to the service, the children, and well, after the service, that same volunteer was cleaning up and he saw that in that little bucket of toys, there was a whole lot of money, $30.43. And he said, well, maybe the kids all gave, some of the leaders gave, whatever. No, Gracie, Gracie gave all that. And so the volunteer went to the coordinator and told him the story of Gracie. On Monday morning, the coordinator of the Champions Club talked to his mom and said, Hey, Gracie gave a lot of money, and I don't know if you know, but we're going to put it in the office so you can go get it,

because it's probably not Gracie's money. And the mom said, No, no, keep it. And Gracie loves to give money, whether it's her money or not her money. And she loves to give money to the city first church. And I started thinking about that story, and I said, we could learn a lot from little Gracie, from this Gracie. It's not our money. A lot of people say, well, I earned it. Yes, of course, you earned it, but at the end of the day, God gave it to you. God who gives you everything, everything you have, everything that I have, gave me the ability to make money. It's all his money, and it's easy to give it away when it's not yours in the first place. What can we learn from this? I was super excited to give money away to other people. In the same way, we can motivate ourselves and say, 100% of what you gave me, a small portion I'm going to give you. It's going to be sacred, it's going to be holy. It comes from the heart. And in the same way, Gracie gave from the heart. I want to give from the heart. Why do we get excited about the legacy? Why do we do it? Why do we even do this? Why do we even talk about this? Why do we ask people to stretch? The answer is in this.

We give to God to be part of something that's bigger than us. Bigger than anything you can imagine, of what we can do. Let me give you statistics about last year, the legacy and what this money went over. This offering that we gave in December of 2024, a portion of it, was able to finance these things. Number one, we have a ministry called God Behind Bars. In Dixon, Illinois, in Hardy County. These are locations of City First. Week after week, they have God Behind Bars. They see this message together. And on top of that, we are also in the Pando application. And that goes for all the people in the prison, all over the nation. In other words, they see the City First services all over the nation. And we have 885,760 885,760 views of people in the prison. Listen to this. More than 677 prisons across the nation are seeing through this Pando application in City First. And because of that,

1,206 documented and saved behind bars for that. That's huge. What else did we do in 2025? We had this backpack legacy. In 2025, we gave 2,700 full of school supplies, school supplies, in all the states. Here in our county. And well, 18 schools. And the schools started calling, saying, we have students who don't have school supplies. We have students who don't have school supplies. We have students who don't have a backpack. We have students who don't have school supplies. And little by little, we have 18 schools in 2026. I would love to see more schools. How about food distribution? We saw more than 108,379 pounds of food, including last week. Imagine 108 pounds of food. That's amazing. That would be the equivalent of 90,317 meals. More than 90,000 meals that we were able to give. And then in 2020,

we started this distribution on a regular basis. And that's what we gave them, 3.6 million pounds of food, which is more than 3.6 million. So that's how this is going. How about the empowerment center? And this is going this year. 30 people, well, here they go. That's big. And well, there are 3,267 people who have become empowered. people who have participated in these centers, in parties, in services, in our Ministry of Young Adults, of Families. This year, in the Family Ministries, we had 8 who have just arrived, cumulatively more than 31,508 children. Imagine, how many children per week is this? And we have had 431 salvations in our Ministry of Young Adults. Kids saying, I want to give my life to Jesus, not including today, not including today. And well, imagine, 293 young adults who have been baptized in 2025, not including today. I could talk about planting the church, I could talk about joining organizations that are rescuing children and people

who are trafficked by humans in Thailand, and other places. We could say a lot. We don't have the time to talk about everything right now, but our point is that our heart is excited, has praise for God when we see the impact of our contagious generosity. It's a sacred offering. You know, something happens, not only through us, but through us, something happens. Something happens in the world. How do we see this? When we see it, people do this. It's interesting. It's really interesting. And so, who better to do it than you? One of you, one of the families of City First who started to have generosity in their family and it's made all of this. Let's go ahead and listen to this. Hi, I'm Shane, and I'm with Gail and Warren. We've been at City First for the last seven years. Money for me was a symbol of status. It made me feel important, and as I made more money, and as we made more money, we gave very consistently. Sometimes we talked about having a big heart, but a big hole.

God used everything to fill it, to fill a void that he had. No matter how much money I had, I felt empty, even though he bought me everything. And literally, we didn't put our trust in God with our finances. In October of 2024, our house burned down and everything we had was gone. The next day, we started with zero, and God started to show us his hand. He put people in our life. God put people in our life who helped us rebuild all of this. I think that after that, it just felt more natural to be generous to God in general, because it was the people, but it was God using those people. I think losing everything made us realize how important it was. And I said, you know what, God? I'm already inside, I trust you. And then all of a sudden, seven months is the easiest offering, the tenth, and it's easy to put it here. And I just want our kids to understand that God is more important than money. He always sees our daughter. Our little daughter has money in her Apple Pay, and she has like a dollar, 70 cents, or two dollars. And every Sunday, he gives it to her.

We want them to have good things, but that's secondary to the real thing. We have a different perspective of who God is, and we realize that everything is God's, and we're giving God what is already God's. A person will prosper if he is generous, and he who refreshes others will be refreshed. Wow, incredible. I don't know how to explain it to you. I didn't always give, but when I already gave, it unlocks something in me, in my heart, in somebody's heart. I mean, it makes us think, look at what God has done for me, and look at what God has done through me. You see, it's an eternal impact. Like, you know, you buy this sweater, it's not like you're going to wear it forever. It's making an eternal impact. Paying taxes doesn't make an eternal impact. It's like you're going to wear it forever. It's like you're going to wear it forever. Even the things that we have in our life, I mean, they're not bad, we have to do it. But everything we buy doesn't go with us. I don't have a moving truck behind a dead body truck. No. When we give to the church of God, we teach God, we teach the love of God.

And lives change. And literally, people start in heaven, in eternity. And that's what he said. We had hearts and moved spirits. And God, imagine, God built a place for everyone to have a relationship with him. Let's look at this story again in Exodus 36. They went to Moses and they went to see Moses and they told him, people have given more than what is necessary to finish the work of the Lord that he has ordered us to do. So Moses gave an order and the following message was sent throughout the camp. Men and women, don't prepare more offerings for the sanctuary. We've had enough. Therefore, people stopped bringing their offerings to the sanctuary. Their contributions were more than enough to complete the whole project. Look, when generosity becomes contagious, the vision becomes reality. And everyone says, I'm there. I'm in there. And well, we're different levels of age. We all go to different levels as we can. But the vision is fulfilled. What is the vision of 2025 for this legacy at the end of the year?

I'm going to close with this today. On December 7th and 14th, we're going to receive an offering because we've been doing it for two weeks. Many years ago, you as a congregation talked to me and wrote to me and you didn't want it to be just one day where you go as the checks fall, right? When you pay us. So we made two dates so you can line up on the day of payment. And well, the vision of 2026, what we do next month is going to impact the next 365 days. And here it is. We want a 20% increase in our compassion, in our mission of compassion. We want this to grow. We want to see a 20% increase. We want to see a 20% increase in our mission of compassion. We want to see a 20% increase in all the world's economy. It's getting more expensive. And some of our missionaries have told me, hey, if there's anything you can give us a little bit more because it's all gone up. But we want a 20% increase. We want to increase the food distribution.

A lot of people don't know what they're going to eat. And I love it because when they were going with the SNAP thing, the government aid, several of the news outlets told us, hey, you can do something in the community. What can you do? Are you going to be able to give them food, give them more food? I love that they called us to see if we could give them more food and give them more food. Like the fact that the media called us, the news, to see if we could do more. It's being said that we're, this reflects that we're being light. Light. And we're going to ask for it to grow, to increase. We're behind bars in prison in Wisconsin. That's another thing. We have Dickson Hardy and now we have a place in Wisconsin. We also want to set up a brand new young adult weekly service here in January, right? So, obviously we've got a lot of young adults that are coming and coming on Sundays

and we want to bring them something to eat during the week. We want them to have a weekly community and that's hard. And we also want to bring a physical place, a place of empowerment, a building. And we're looking at it and we know what we're doing. And in 2026, we want to buy a church and have an empowerment center. We also need to fund things in this place that need to be fixed. Not only are we helping all over the world, but ladies and gentlemen, this place gets a lot of waste because thousands and thousands of people come here every single week. So, we need air conditioning units because I don't know if they were here in the summer and it got pretty hot. You know, there's a lot going on in June. There were five large units of ambulances here on the roof and all four of them decided to die in a week, literally. On June 22nd, it was so hot here, it was 86 degrees here in the auditorium, I literally almost thought I was going to change the subject, talk about hell. It was so hot, really. If we don't fix this, if we don't change this, well, imagine, it's from 1988, and well, they already lived their lives in these air conditioners, but to replace them is a lot of money. Also, foyer carpeting, I figured out, more than a million people have entered the lobby in the last 20 years,

in the 20, this changed in 2003, more than 20 years ago. The bathrooms need to be remodeled. The gift for this location, I'm talking just for this location, Cape Coral has its goals, Jamesville has its goals, they're also contributing to the admission and the empowerment center, and God behind the bars, and the food distribution. But just for this location, our goal for the end of the year is $2 million. A lot of people say, oh, that's a lot of money. It is, for you, for me, individually, it's a lot of money. But for all of us together, it's not a lot of money. And to God, it's not a lot of money at all. I'm just saying, if everyone prays and puts a heart into it, and generosity becomes contagious, we're going to meet and surpass it, and we're going to do so much for the kingdom of God in 2026, that there will literally be so many people who are in need for the gospel in one way or another. Our church is growing, you feel it. Every service is growing. There are people who are getting baptized. Even today, more than 100 people have been baptized, or are ready to be baptized. Our parking lot is full, sorry about that, but we can only do certain things. There's only a few entrances and exits, but thank you for being patient. And you know what? Our God is growing his church. How important. And we have to be generous.

It's time to be generous to accelerate the mission that God is doing here. And in fact, it says in 2 Chronicles 2, it says, the house that's being built has to be the best because it's the one that God, because God is the best. What has he done for me? On December 7th and December 14th, let us come with hearts that are there for our gift, that are sacred, saints, that have been put aside, different from Netflix, from Target, from Walmart, from paying taxes, right? And you say, God, we're going to give you a way that all eternity is impacted. So as we close, I want you to let me just ask you to go to the back of your seats. Take one of these little book boxes and you can take it, this marker, right? And you can also, on the screen if you're looking online, but behind this marker, this paper, it's simple. Jen and I do it like this. We have to make it simple to understand it. How do we determine what we're going to give? Why? Well, you say, I can't give you. And the person sitting can't tell you how much you can give your wife, your husband. But no one can tell you how much to give. God is the one who has to tell you. So that's why, number one, you got to pray about it. It's not pressure. I don't know if you're going to give or you're not going to give.

It's not about that. It's not about bending your arm. It's praying to say, God, with everything you've blessed me with, what can I give to you and your kingdom and your work? With everything you've given to me, what can I give? And you pray for this. And then you got a plan. Because you know what? On December 7th and 14th, you're going, you know what? I'm not going to buy so many coffees. And I'm not going to buy this or that. Whatever it is. Or you have to save. Or maybe say, I'm not going to buy this. I'm not going to buy that. Some of you, it's like, you gotta cash in some stuff, you know what I'm saying, like you got a plan. That's what it says. And then the third one, you commit. You say, okay, that's how Jen and I do it, it happens all the time. You get two numbers, a safe number and you get one that requires faith. I would tell you, to do what Jen and I do, and someone with one with faith. So, I try a little bit. In fact, I'll be very honest with you,

many times it's Jen who gives the number rather than me, and we always go with her number. And the reason why is, because she listens more to me than I do to her. No, it's because we're alive together, especially if you're in a relationship, and one of you is more generous than the other. I'm pretty generous, but she's off the charts. So, let's go with her number. And so, what is it? You commit to that. You commit to the seven and the 14. There's one thing right now that God gives you is the number that God gives you, and you just go with whatever he says. He said, because God's not trying to get something from you. He's trying to get something in you. This offering works more in us than in any other person. So, let's bow our heads and close our eyes. Dear Father, all-powerful Father, I pray that as we process the next few weeks, as we pray, as we plan, as we commit and give, God, I ask that you move, that you move in our hearts and you move in your church. God, I ask and Lord, I pray that we're there to give, to realize that it's the best, that people are the only thing we can bring with us to heaven. We can't bring anything else. So, God, the most important thing that we can do is reach people for you.

God, through our generosity and our faithful giving, God, I pray that you would expand City First to way bigger impact, that thousands of people come, that more people would be saved from human trafficking, that more missionaries would be founded, I pray that the gospel would go to unlimited places. I pray that the Promise Center would become a stop for all of us for good. I pray that you would do more than we can imagine, Lord. We love you, we give you thanks and we all say amen, amen. We give praise to God for that. Amen.