A Life of Giving: A Channel of Blessing

Introduction

Why give? Why devote your time, your money, your strength to God and to others? In this message preached at Christ Glory Church in Kobe, Pastor Susumu Kitayama invites you to see giving in a whole new light. Giving isn't a religious duty that drains you. It's a response to what God has already placed in your life, and it's the channel through which his grace keeps flowing on to others. Two passages carry the whole message: 1 Chronicles 29 and 2 Corinthians 8 to 9. In the end, only one question remains: what kind of channel do you want to be?

Outline of the message

1. Everything comes from God, so you respond by giving

• The word "give" covers everything here: your time, your money, your strength, your talents. Not just an envelope on Sunday.
• In 1 Chronicles 29, David dedicated an enormous offering for the building of the Temple. And yet he doesn't boast. He prays: "But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you" (1 Chronicles 29:14).
• David didn't let it go to his head. He didn't say, "I've accomplished something great." He said, "It all came from you already." That awareness changes everything about the way you give.
• The New Testament makes the source even clearer: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son" (John 3:16). "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep" (John 10:11). God doesn't do quid pro quo. He gives, and keeps giving, without waiting for anything in return.
• Facing a God who has loved you 100 percent, the question is no longer "should I give 10 percent or not?" The question becomes: "How do I respond to what I've received?"

2. Giving opens a channel for grace

• Paul writes to the Corinthians: "We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia" (2 Corinthians 8:1). He's talking about their offering, and he calls it "grace."
• The Christians of Macedonia were in extreme poverty and going through severe trial. They didn't give because they were forced to. They gave because grace pushed them forward, like a spring overflowing. "They gave themselves first to the Lord" (2 Corinthians 8:5).
• Giving means opening a channel. It's not first a question of amount. It's a question of posture: are you holding back, or are you letting it flow through?
• Consecration comes before material giving. "Giving yourself first to the Lord" is the foundation. Everything else follows.

3. The sower reaps according to what he sows

• "The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:6-7).
• Sow without sadness, without compulsion, joyfully. God doesn't need a sorrowful donor. He's looking for a free heart.
• "God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work" (2 Corinthians 9:8).
• The logic isn't, "Give so you can get rich yourself." The logic is: "Receive abundantly so you can give abundantly." The channel doesn't fill up for its own sake. It fills up to flow further.
• Your gift produces, somewhere else, a praise you'll never hear: "This ministry of service...producing thanksgiving to God" (see 2 Corinthians 9:11-12).

4. Your body, a living offering

• "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship" (Romans 12:1).
• The greatest offering is yourself. Not just your money, not just your hours of service. Your body, your life, your presence, offered.
• Where should you offer this life? Pastor Kitayama refuses to lock the answer inside "at church." Consecration is lived out mostly outside the walls: at work, at home, at school, wherever God has placed you.
• Practically speaking: when a problem comes up, don't give in to panic, pray in peace. "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). That's where you become a channel of blessing for the people around you.

5. The fruit sometimes shows up where you least expect it

• The pastor tells two real stories from around Christ Glory Church in Kobe.
• After a fair (bazaar) organized by the church, the children's cafeteria "Manna" (which had stopped its takeout service back in June) suddenly received 90 reservations the very next day. The fair had spread the word through the neighborhood, and families brought their children back. One act of service had set off another.
• A woman in her forties, who had recently started coming to the cafeteria, shared: "After the great earthquake, a church in the neighborhood fed me and gave me a blue plaid garment. I felt its warmth." That was the former building of Christ Glory Church in Kobe, before it relocated. What Christians who had suffered greatly sowed after the 1995 earthquake, when they themselves had lost everything, was bearing fruit thirty years later in a hall where their successors were now serving meals to children.
• That's the principle of the channel: you give, and grace keeps flowing long after you, into places you never imagined.

Key takeaways

• Everything you offer to God, he gave to you first. The right posture is David's: "Who am I to offer anything? It all came from you."
• Giving isn't a religious duty that drains you. It's grace, a channel you open to let what God wants to circulate flow through you.
• God doesn't love a forced giver. He loves a cheerful giver. Sow without sadness, without compulsion, just as you've decided in your heart.
• What you receive abundantly, you receive in order to redistribute. The channel doesn't fill up for its own sake.
• The greatest offering is yourself. Your body, your life, offered as a living sacrifice. And this worship is lived out mostly outside the walls of the church, wherever God has placed you.

Personal application

1. When you give (time, money, service), do you experience it as a heavy duty or as a response to what you've received? What's holding you back?
2. Where in your life are you tempted to believe "I built this" rather than "everything comes from God"? How can you come back to David's prayer?
3. Consecration comes before material giving. Have you already "given yourself to the Lord" the way the Macedonians did? What's still left for you to hand over to him?
4. Where has God placed you this week (work, family, school, neighborhood) so that you could be a channel of blessing? What concrete step can you take?
5. Think of a gift or an act of service you made that seemed to have no effect. Can you trust that God might still bring fruit from it later, somewhere else, like the woman with the blue plaid garment?

Scripture references

• 1 Chronicles 29:10-14
• John 3:16
• John 10:11
• 2 Corinthians 8:1-7
• 2 Corinthians 9:6-11
• Romans 12:1
• 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

FAQ

Do we still have to give a tithe (10 percent) today?

Pastor Kitayama doesn't settle the question in a legalistic way. His conviction: God gave you 100 percent in Christ. Once you grasp the size of that gift, you stop arguing over the percentage and start asking how to respond. Give as you have decided in your heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion (2 Corinthians 9:7).

What if I really don't have much to give?

Look at the Christians of Macedonia: they were in extreme poverty, and they still gave with joy, carried along by grace. Consecrating yourself matters more than the amount. Start by giving yourself to the Lord. Everything else follows.

Does giving matter if I never see the result?

Often, no, you won't see it. The brothers and sisters in Kobe who served after the 1995 earthquake never saw that a woman would rediscover, thirty years later, the warmth of their welcome in a children's cafeteria. Sow anyway. God carries grace further than your eyes can see.