Therefore, Pray Like This

This is the English-translated outline of the sermon preached by Rev. Musubi Tabuchi to the combined congregations of Ashiya Christian Church and Unfinished Community on Sunday, July 27, 2025, the 100th Anniversary of Ashiya Christian Church, and the groundbreaking of the new church building. It draws from Luke 11:1-13

Have you ever felt God's guidance? I feel it strongly every time I write the sermon for our Sunday church service. Every Sunday, when I am thinking about what message to share, I first check the daily Bible reading, and I am always both amazed and grateful that the text given is always so appropriate. And today, as we celebrate the 100th Anniversary Commemorative Worship Service of this church's founding, the passage I was given was from Luke 11:1-12; the Lord's Prayer. If we are being honest, we do not actually know how to pray properly, so the fact that Jesus teaches us to “pray like this” is very important for us.

I won't take the time to explain the Lord’s Prayer in detail here today, but with the prayer we find the message “Ask, and it will be given to you.”. This single phrase, perhaps more than any other, has been the very foundation which has supported our church’s 100-year journey. Today, we will be holding the groundbreaking ceremony for our new worship hall, and at that time we will read the words from Haggai 1:8, which are said to be the very words that were “given” to our predecessors 100 years ago when they set out to build our first worship hall. At that time, the Ashiya Christian Church had neither sufficient funds nor members. What they did have though, was the prayers of people who were determined to build a church here.

To commemorate our 100th anniversary, we are also beginning construction of a new chapel. However, just like before, we are find ourselves lacking in both funds and members, and there are now about ten Christian churches in Ashiya City. So one might wonder why our church needs to build a new chapel at this point. Who really needs this church? Who will carry it out? It this not merely an exercise of our own hope, satisfaction, or desire? In the Book of Haggai, God commanded the Israelites, who had just returned from the horrors of Babylonian captivity and who were in a truly miserable state, to build the temple. Much as with them, we are not setting out to build our church as a physical structure, but rather, as a response to a calling from God. And because God's will is there, we are beginning this work of building a new chapel with the prayer, “May Your will be done.”

Let us pray.

We pray thanks, O God, that for the past 100 years You have guided and supported us. May we continue to be a community that trusts in Your guidance and follows it. Protect the construction work and the safety of everyone involved the project. May You protect us all now, and always. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ,

Amen.