Welcome to Foundry Cast. It's Chad here. Jack O'Ockaby is a familiar face around Foundry. He interned a few years ago with us one summer.
He served in many different capacities. And when I was out of town a few weeks ago, I asked Jack to speak at St. Andrews. Now, I mean, if you know this, if you don't, but I would eat St.
Andrews on him at this church as well. And on Sundays, right after our 10 o'clock worship service, I bug you down to St. Andrews and preach there. So while Alan Johnson filled in at Foundry, I asked Jack to share a message at St.
Andrews. Now, Jack has been green communications. He's a fantastic speaker. This is the first time he's ever handled a sermon in church before.
We want to share this with the community and you would like to hear this. And Jack also did a really good job. So this is Jack O'Ockaby sermon from a St. Andrews United Methodist Church.
And it's all about prayer. I hope you enjoy as much as I did. So first off, I would like to say thank you so much for this opportunity to come up here and speak. It's an honor to come and talk about prayer.
So first off, I would like to give a little bit of my backstory so we can better understand how I got here. So I grew up in the United Methodist Church. I'm from Raven, Louisiana. I'm 25 years old.
And at the age of 12, I went through confirmation and I was baptized. When I was 19, I graduated high school. And from a young age, I wanted to be a pilot. So I moved off to the exotic land of Florida, where I got my commercial plus license.
I lived there for a year. And that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to go into the airlines. And the moment came where it was time for me to be locked into that course.
And I quickly found out that was not God's plan for me. So fortunately, some things happened. And I wound up moving back to Raven, Louisiana. At the age of 20, I accepted Christ in my life and became a true believer.
I'm dyslexic, so I tend to have a thing. I do think backwards. So I was sitting in the Wesley parking lot. And the Wesley has been influential in my faith, as long as my family there and the staff.
I was sitting in the parking lot. And a friend of mine had asked how my faith was. And I told him it was fine. But it was bugging me.
And I went home. And that night is when I accepted Christ. Because I realized I didn't have a relationship with him. So 20 years old.
And I've been at the Wesley every since I haven't even get away after I did. So a year later, I joined the leadership team. And again, the Wesley has done a lot. I've had a lot of baggage.
I had to let go. I've had a lot of decisions to make. And choices to choose. And God has led me through all of that.
So last May, I graduated college, which is another thing I never thought I would do. Like preaching. So I graduated in communication advocacy and a minor in aviation. And God also informed me that I would be a communication major because I started out in aviation.
And when the time came to decide what I wanted my career to be, God told me he wanted to be an intern at the Wesley Foundation. I said no because I didn't want to be an intern at the Wesley Foundation. So I compromised. And I'm now an intern at the Wesley Foundation.
He has a way of being very persuasive. So ministry, I found, I started in August, has been a lot more challenging than I would have ever thought. I've had to grow in a lot of ways. And it's been a roller coaster.
God has systematically taken me through problem after problem and shown me that he would be there and shown me that he was enough and that I could rely on him. He also made me stand up and say I'm a Christian. It made me put skin in the game, which is a lot of my story. He made me say I can't do certain things.
And I can't be a part of a certain lifestyle because that would hurt my relationship with him. And so with everything becoming a lot more real, it led me to prayer because the Great Commission became a lot more real in my life to go out and make disciples, which is my main job. It's not really a job. It's more of a joy at the Wesley Foundation.
But I realized I wasn't enough. And I needed God to do it. And so the prayer started with the book I read. And I read these books and they wind up shaking me and making my face grow.
And it's always crazy. So it's called Red Moon Rising. And it's about a 24-7 prayer movement that started in England in the year 2000. And it has since spread across the globe.
And it's a pretty amazing story. If you've never read the book, I highly recommended the author's Pete Gregg. But he said something that really struck a chord with me. He said he was sick of outsourcing his prayer.
He said he was sick of hearing all of the amazing things God was doing in other people's lives and in ministry. And he wanted to be a part of it. And looking around at ULM and Monroe, I started feeling the same way. And I no longer wanted to just be idle in my faith.
I really wanted to see God work and do amazing things on the campus that I love. So God answered. Saint Augustine said, you have put salt in our mouths that we may thirst for you more. And sometimes the salt comes from our tears.
And so I started praying. I quickly realized that I had no idea how to pray. And so for 40 days, I prayed every morning I woke up and every night before I went to bed. And I have this Frankenstein sheet of paper where I've took a bunch of prayers that really spoke to me and kind of made this little makeshift prayer template.
But after 40 days, I realized that wasn't enough and I needed to change things up. So I finally asked God to teach me to pray, which in hindsight, I probably should have started with that. And this is the scripture he gave me. This is actually the only scripture I have a memory of like associated with it.
And it's with my Grandma Lena Madazmam. We're in church one Sunday. And the pastor told us where to find the scripture. And she looked at me with a smirk and said, we're Methodists, we have it memorized.
And some of you may have actually heard this before. It's Matthew 6, chapter 9 through 13. And it's our father who art in heaven, how would be thy name? I believe we just said that.
But I'll go ahead and read all of it. It's our father who art in heaven, how would be thy name? That kingdom come that will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses.
As we forgive those who trust us against us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. So I cannot tell you how many times I've said this in church. And I'm pretty sure like Methodists are like born with it ingrained. Because I can't remember a time I didn't know how to recite this.
But the problem was it's just something that I recited. I'd never actually dove into it. And I mean, I've even prayed this on my personal time. But I didn't realize it was actually a template for prayer.
And so I started praying this and I learned a few things. And that's what Chad wanted me to come and share about today. So the first thing that I learned from prayer is pray about the simple things. The everyday mundane, normal things.
I'd usually try and pray for the big stuff and leave it at that. But if you get the small things right, the big things will follow. What I found is when we pray about the daily things, we're inviting God into the smallest parts of our lives. We're able to experience Him in everything.
I heard someone say pray for a parking spot that you know you're gonna get. That way you can praise God anyway. And those little things that God does in our life, they add up to something big. When we start to pray, God starts setting up dominoes.
And when the dominoes start getting laid, that's when things start happening. And one day, God flicks them and everything falls into place. If we only pray for the big things, we're missing out on experiencing God daily in our lives. Instead of just praying for someone's salvation, pray for the steps leading up to it.
If you have someone you care about that you see on a weekly basis, pray for good conversations that you can have with them. Pray for them to experience the love of Christ. Pray for them to find God in their daily lives and for Him to reveal their, instead of just praying for the finished product. I mean, still pray for it, but also pray for the little things too.
If you want to see God in your daily life, all you have to do is look a little bit closer. At the Wesley, we have a meeting. And every two weeks on Sunday night, after we have our second breakfast, and we ask, you know, what can we pray for? We pray for each other, but we also talk about where we've seen Christ in our lives.
Now I've been part of the Wesley for roughly six years now. And that question has always been really hard to answer. And I've had to like rack my brain trying to see it. But since I started praying, I started seeing Christ more and more in my life.
And now I have trouble picking which one, which is pretty awesome. The second thing I've learned is that God reveals himself through prayer. Now on my phone, I have an app and I can free to download. It's got any translation of the Bible you want.
And the cool thing, because I hate reading, is it reads to you. Like I was in audiobooks all the time, I love it. And but we haven't always had that. And the thing Christians have always had though, is we've had prayer.
We've been able to talk to God. It's a relationship. And the last time I checked, that requires two way communication. A good example is what did Adam and Eve talk to God about in the garden?
They would say things probably like nice tree lord, or puppies are cute, or why did you make a platypus? Those things are confusing. Because God didn't just send Jesus to die on the cross, so we could give him a shopping list. He calls us to a relationship.
A quote I heard once helps sums up prayer. Prayer at the simplest is asking for help. Prayer at its best is listening. Prayer at its deepest is communion.
Like in a relationship, we have to work on it. And the good thing is, when we get to know God a little, we start to crave him more. A.W. Tozer said in his book, The Pursuit of God, Moses used the fact that he knew God as an argument for knowing him better.
When we start praying, we grow closer, and our lives start to reflect that in simple ways that do drastic things. A prayerful life is like a boycott in the economy of sin. Now here's a controversial statement. Like the Super Bowl, when things aren't fair, we don't watch, right?
But that changes things, that affects things. One person that prays daily can change their life, can change their world. And when you start adding more and more people, that's when the world starts to notice. It's like a whisper slowly becoming a shout.
So thirdly, and this is always the fun one, I've been humbled through prayer. If you're around Chad any amount of time, you'll hear his sayings. And I'm pretty sure his favorite one is Jesus is big enough, barbecue is good. He has stickers made, it's crazy, I love it.
But I already knew barbecue is good. But for me to learn that Jesus is big enough, I had to learn that I wasn't. God has a habit of putting me in situations, and I found this very early on in my faith. He puts me in situations where my strengths are relevant and my weaknesses are evident.
I had to learn to rely on him. And what he taught me is that God wants me to downsize myself and supersize him in my life. Now for some honesty, this whole prayer journey started because there was someone I wanted to help or save. But if I'm being real, I have a bit of a hero complex.
And a lot of my story is trying to fix broken people. I mean, it's trying to fix broken people. And that comes from my own brokenness. God made me realize that there was nothing I could do for them and the things they need, only he can provide.
Not only that, but pursuing this would lead me down all too familiar roads that don't lead to the cross. So after many cycles of this, I finally seemed to be getting it a little bit. God once again hijacked my good intentions and showed me so much more. He wasn't satisfied with letting me think what I thought was enough.
He wanted me to show me what it truly means to pray and what it means to pray for the right reasons. So I had to give it to God. I had to remove myself from this specific equation, realizing my need. And realizing my need for God has been the hardest and most rewarding thing that has ever come out of my faith.
The other thing he taught me in this was these people that I love and care about, he loves so much more. And I can also flip that and say, as much as I love myself, he loves me more. And he's been showing me this for a very long time. And that's a good thing.
So remember, pray for the small things. It's a relationship, not a genie in the bottle, even though sometimes I wish it was. And we must become less so he can become more. So back in the scripture, I didn't realize that it was a skeleton that I could flesh out, that I could make it personal to myself.
So someone broke it down for me. It's five pieces. Andrew Murray in the School of Prayer is the book that really made this click for me. So the first part, our Father, who art in heaven, how it would be that name, is adoration.
And as C.S. Lewis once put it, God is inviting us to climb in his lap and enjoy his presence. And when we say our Father in heaven, we're doing something that no holy person up until the time of Jesus has ever been able to do. And that has claimed God as our Father.
We're recognizing Jesus' sacrifice on the cross for us to be adopted into God's children. And this gets us into the right mindset. And we can recognize who God is and who his character is. This fills us with hope and joy.
That one we pray for those horrible things that are going on in our lives and those sicknesses and illnesses. We know who's hearing these prayers, and that gives us more hope. The second part is intercession. That kingdom come by will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
This is where we stand in the gap for people. This is where we pray for the things in people's lives like their salvation or for healing or for whatever's going on. Next is asking for ourselves. And the fact that we get to ask the creator of the universe for our daily bread is pretty cool to me.
And it kind of blows my mind that he can create the sun, but he'll listen to me and he takes joy in it. Because he is a Father once again, and he loves to bless us and give gifts. Nextly, repentance. And forgive us our trespasses.
That's God showing us grace once again. The fact that we can stop, turn from where we are, because I know repentance is a scary word, but that's all it is, is we stop where we are, and we look to the cross and we start walking. And we have to do it daily because we mess up daily. We're human and God knew that, and that's why we have grace.
But there's also some accountability here, because if we say the whole thing, and forgive us our trespasses, and that's where we like to stop, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Personally, I have problems with that part. I have to get over myself a little bit and forgive as I've been forgiven, because we can show Christ with the world this way, turning the other cheek. And lastly, is deliverance.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliverance from evil. Some people call this the spiritual warfare. This is where God stands in the gap for us. It's where he leads us, and he protects us from the evil one and the evil in the world.
And I find it amazing. And this will probably blow my mind until the day I die, and then I'll meet God and he'll blow my mind even more, but that the creator of the universe would stand up to bat for his children. So thank you for allowing me to come and speak today. Thank you for listening and giving me this opportunity to share what God has been doing in my life and teaching me.
So I will pray, and we'll get on with you. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this day. I thank you for who you are and what you've done in our lives. I thank you so much for being with us.
I thank you for allowing us to be able to come to you and pray for others and ask for ourselves. Thank you for the forgiveness and the sacrifice on the cross. And thank you for sending the bat for us. Amen.