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Reset Podcast with Archie Callahan is where faith meets real life.
In a world constantly shaping the way men think, lead + live, Reset Podcast takes a fresh look at men + culture through the lens of the GOSPEL. Each episode features honest conversations, practical wisdom + scriptural truth designed to help MEN reset their minds, strengthen their faith + lead with purpose in their homes, workplaces, churches + communities.
Whether we’re discussing leadership, marriage, fatherhood, integrity, current culture, spiritual growth, or the challenges men face today, our goal is simple: to align our lives with God’s truth + become the men He has called us to be.
SUBSCRIBE + join the conversation as we challenge cultural norms, encourage biblical manhood + pursue a life that honors Christ.
NEW EPISODE EVERY WEDNESDAY.
Welcome once again to the Reset Podcast, your host here, Archie Callahan.
We have Micah Murphy in the house today, and we're going to talk about armed for manhood and how the armor of God shapes a man.
See, Paul in Ephesians chapter 6, he talks about the armor of God.
He says, be strong in the Lord and the power is mine.
Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
Micah, we're in a fight, man.
Have you ever realized that, man?
Have you ever faced the fight?
What kind of fights have you been fighting lately?
I think you really realize what kind of a fight you're in, especially when you get married and then once you have kids, especially young kids.
But the fights like I've faced, you know, as a young man is, you know, comparison, especially to the older generation.
I think, you know, being a young guy, you have to fight the battle of, you know,
And looking at the older generation and wanting what they have but wanting it now.
Oh, yeah.
And you're like, oh, my gosh, I'm so far behind.
But really, you just need to understand where God has you right now.
How old are you?
And steward that.
I'm 29 years old.
29 years old, man.
I would give anything to be able to go back to 29.
Probably not.
I like where I'm at right now at 56, you know.
My kids are older, and you're just starting out that.
A lot of diapers.
And there's a lot of pressure at 29 years old.
There is.
There is.
There's a lot of pressure to supply for your family, to meet the needs of your kids, not only the financial needs, the material needs, but the emotional needs of your family, the spiritual needs.
And we know that the enemy hates manhood.
He hates families.
And so he fights, man.
Paul called this the good fight of faith.
And for men who have been pushed down over the last 40, 50 years in our culture, I believe there is a revival among men.
God is calling men to prepare to lead once again.
And how does a guy at 29 years old, how do you prepare yourself, man, to lead from the context of Ephesians 6, to lead your wife, to lead your kids, to lead in ministry because you are a pastor here at Bridge Church?
How do you do that, man?
um well first i mean we see right there in uh verse 10 in ephesians 6 it says be strong in the lord i think we always always always have to understand understand especially as men that our strength isn't in us yeah you know i i like to hunt i like to fish i like to get out in the outdoors and do manly things but that doesn't make me strong my strength comes from the lord and from him alone and uh
I read a book at the beginning of the years by Pastor Joby Martin called Stand Firm and Act Like Men.
And he said it over and over in that book.
Before you can stand firm, you must first learn to bow.
And I think we find that strength and we learn how to stand by bowing in prayer.
If you're the spiritual leader for your house, you ought to be the first one praying.
It's not your wife's job.
Yeah.
So why is it hard for men to bow?
Probably pride.
Yeah.
You think men, you think they battle with pride?
Most men do, because most men want to be bowed to.
And they'd rather be the one, you know, we always, I call it, the world would call it toxic masculinity.
We just call it unbiblical, where men just always think that everybody has to submit to them.
Submission, before...
Before he says for the women to submit to the man, he says men submit to one another.
You first have to learn to submit to everyone else before anybody submits to you.
It's mutual submission.
If you can't mutually submit to somebody, you'll never be able to be in authority because before you can be in authority, you have to learn to come under authority.
Now, when we look at the armor of God, you're 29 years old, two boys, a wife.
You've got all the financial pressures, all the pressures that are on you.
And when you look at the armor of God, which part of the armor of God today feels most real in your life right now?
Which one do you need to have in place right now as a young man, 29 years old, just starting your family?
What do you feel?
Um, the one, I mean, I've, I've tried to practice getting all of them on obviously, but the one that I, I guess would say more so like struggle with, like just making sure I have it on is the, the shoes of the gospel of peace.
Um, cause real quick, just some, you know how it is with little kids.
When I'm getting sick, we just had Callum sick.
We had to go to the doctor and just having peace in those situations.
Um, you know,
It can be tough sometimes.
And you start thinking immediately, oh, man, what do I got to do to do this?
And then you start realizing you're getting outside of peace.
You ain't got no peace in this situation.
And then you got to remember, hold on.
I know where my peace comes from.
Let me get back.
Let me pray.
Let me ask God for wisdom in this situation.
And I think from that, everything starts, all the other pieces of armor start to fall in place if one's out of place.
I mean, it's almost like the body of Christ.
If one's out of place, it's like everything's out of place.
But the one I definitely feel the most is definitely the shoes of the gospel piece, having feet fitted, standing firm on the foundation of Jesus Christ.
Yeah, it's readiness, man.
It's readiness to be at peace, to be a peacemaker.
Because adverse circumstances can enter your life at any moment.
Your child can get sick.
Your car can break down.
You'll need a new alternator.
And when you're young, every little penny counts.
And I've been there.
I was 29.
That's when we first had our first child.
I was 29 years old.
Ethan came.
Man, we did not have much money when we were starting Bridge Church, and we just had to trust God.
And things in life try to rob you of your peace.
The Word of God says, let the peace of God rule in your hearts.
Jesus said, my peace I give you, my peace I leave with you.
So we have to have these shoes of peace.
I know guys love shoes, man.
You love hunting shoes.
Mm-hmm.
You know, you love tennis shoes or Air Jordans.
There's all kind of shoes, but we need the shoes of peace on every day of our lives, especially in the world that we live in, man.
The world is kind of crazy right now.
And Paul said, finally, be strong in the Lord.
So we know our strength is not in us.
It's not self-generated or motivated strength.
It's strength that comes from the Holy Spirit, from the Lord.
We're Spirit-empowered people.
So he says, take up the whole armor.
You just talked about the shoes of peace, but there's a whole lot of armor, man.
You've got the helmet of salvation.
What does that do?
It protects our minds.
You ever battle with thoughts, man?
Absolutely.
Bishop Tony Miller used to talk about how there's this old song that says, I went to the enemy's camp, and I took back what he stole from me.
And he would always say, you know where the enemy's camp normally is?
Right here between your ears.
Yeah, it's in your mind.
And if the enemy can control your thoughts, he can control your destiny.
Yeah, yeah, no doubt about that, man.
And if he controls your destiny, man, he can determine where you're going to spend eternity.
Totally.
Absolutely.
So you have to put on the whole armor of God.
We have to have that helmet of salvation, man, on.
Sometimes people get saved and they're on their way to heaven, but their mind's not saved.
Yeah.
And our mind has to be renewed because negativity comes our way, negative thoughts, self-defeating thoughts, thoughts of failure, thoughts of not being good enough.
What thoughts do you think men struggle with?
You know, I mean, like you just said, struggle, of course, failure.
And I would say, too, maybe doubt.
Yeah.
Maybe doubt.
Just thinking like, you know, almost like what if, you know, I'm trusting God, but what if it doesn't happen?
But what if, you know, my kid doesn't get healed?
What if my finances don't come back?
But what if, and there's this doubt.
And so it's almost, and then those thoughts do come of like, you know, if it doesn't happen, what next?
What do I trust in?
And so I actually highlighted last night James 1, 5 and 6.
In verse 6 it says, but let him ask in faith without doubting.
For the doubter is like a wave in the sea driven and tossed by the wind.
A person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord, being double-minded and unstable in his ways.
So if you're standing firm, if you're putting on the armor of God, if you're keeping your thoughts captive and making them come into alignment with God's Word and His will for your life,
We have to protect that and not let the thoughts that are keeping us tossed, keeping us going every which way all over the place.
And some people feel that way in life.
They feel like they're going everywhere and getting nowhere.
Yeah, they're double-minded.
They're vacillating between belief and doubt.
They're never stable.
You will never be stable in life until you're stable in your thinking.
Yes.
So we have to take every thought captive.
Paul teaches that in I think it's 2 Corinthians.
But he teaches us to take every thought captive.
Why?
Because thoughts can come from three places.
They can come from your flesh, they can come from Satan, or they can come from God.
Yeah.
You take all those thoughts captive, and you say, is this a God thought?
If it's a God thought, I'm going to keep it.
But if it's a thought that's coming from my fallen flesh, I'm going to do away with that, and I'm going to replace it with a God thought, with the Word of God.
If it comes from Satan, I'm not going to allow Satan to put thoughts in my mind.
I'm going to replace it with God's Word.
So that's where the helmet of salvation comes in, and that's where it protects our minds from the enemy.
And then he says, you know, you've got to pick up a shield of faith.
You gotta have faith over fear, man.
If you let your mind ramble too much,
Man, you'll live inside of your house.
You will live in fear.
But Paul told Timothy, God's not giving us a spirit of fear.
That's right.
But a power, love, and a sound mind.
And for young people, I know the economy is kind of expensive right now with inflation.
It's hard for a young couple to get a house.
And you can live in fear or you can live in faith.
How do you stay in faith, Micah?
Prayer.
Prayer.
And always just remembering where God has me is where he wants me and just remembering that and trusting that and not getting in the trap of like, well, maybe this isn't God.
Because if I get to thinking like that, I'll be thinking, okay, what do I need to do in order to make this happen?
And then all that, then I'm relying on my strength instead of being strong in the Lord, relying on the strength he's given me.
And so staying in faith, you know, I always, always, always, like I said, you have to be the spiritual leader.
If you're going to be the spiritual leader, you've got to be the faith leader.
as well.
You've got to be the one building your faith as well as your family's and building them up in faith.
And I think that's crucial.
So he says put on the full armor of God.
So we talked about the helmet of salvation, the shoes of peace.
We have the breastplate of righteousness that protects our heart.
We have to guard our hearts, man.
I'm telling you, there's everything out there trying to win the heart of a man.
His passion can become defiled because his heart goes away from God.
So we have to put on righteousness.
We have to put on the belt of truth.
Truth, man, we have to be truthful.
You know, the purpose of the truth of God's Word is to make us truthful.
Yeah.
Make us people of truth.
That's the whole purpose of the Word of God, to make us truthful.
And that comes by knowing God.
In our day, man, is it hard for guys to be truthful?
I think so, honestly.
Just with all the
The influencers out there chasing every dream, trying to be an influencer, trying to be some.
When it comes to social media, especially with these young guys, what I've noticed is on social media, you only see the good parts of people's life.
You never see the bad stuff.
So you're literally, and I think you said it one Sunday morning, if you're not sharing the full truth, then it's still a lie.
Yeah.
It's not the truth.
And in order to know the truth, you have to know who is truth, and that's Jesus.
And I think as men, we have to cultivate a legit relationship with Jesus, not just the verse a day that pops up on your YouVersion app or one Sunday a week.
Yeah, for a younger generation, man, they want older guys who will be truthful, honest, show them not just their success, but their failure also.
It's almost like doubting Thomas.
Doubting Thomas wanted to see the scars that Jesus had, and Jesus did not conceal his scars.
He showed Doubting Thomas his scars.
And oftentimes I think we need to show our younger generation, man, we failed at times, man.
We blew it with our kids.
We blew it with our spouse.
There were times we struggled, man, is this thing really going to happen?
Can I hold my marriage together?
And we need to be truthful about it.
And sometimes when it comes to being truthful, I think sometimes men absolutely lie to themselves.
They believe a lie and they live a lie.
Yeah.
Living a lie is probably just saying, hey, man, I'm not going to be vulnerable.
I'm not going to be honest with the people around me.
Because a lot of times we want to hide our pain.
We want to hide our struggle.
But as long as we hide our pain and hide our struggle, God can never heal us.
Why do you think men hide?
I think they might feel that they would look weak.
Men don't want to look weak, do they?
Nope.
They want to be Arnold Schwarzenegger.
They want to be Conan the Barbarian.
They want to be LeBron James.
We don't want to look weak.
Why?
Why don't we want to look weak?
Cause if we will look less of a man or what the world calls a man.
Yeah.
Cause you know, like I said earlier, all men want to look tough.
They want to be these hard guys, but as soon as weakness creeps in or as soon as vulnerability creeps in, oh, he's less of a man.
He's less respectable.
Yeah, so men oftentimes won't shed tears in front of people.
Years ago, men were taught not to cry in previous generations, and that bleeds over.
But if you look at Jesus, when Toby Martin wrote that book, Stand Strong, Act Like Men, if we're going to act like men, if we're going to stand strong, we can't look at –
people around us to determine what that looks like, we have to look at the biblical model, who is Jesus.
Jesus was strong enough to whip people out of the temple, but weak enough in front of people to cry.
The Bible says he wept over Jerusalem, and he wept outside the tomb of Lazarus.
In John 11, verse 35, it says, Jesus wept.
And so Jesus, he was a man.
He was a man's man.
He was a carpenter.
Actually, in those days, we called Jesus a carpenter, but he worked with limestone.
He was a stone maker.
He fashioned and chiseled stone.
So he had to have some muscles.
He probably had calluses on his hands.
He grew in the family business, and he didn't go into ministry until he was 30.
But he was strong, but he was willing to kneel down into the dirt and help people.
He was willing to weep.
He was willing to be touched by the feelings of our infirmities.
And sometimes when we come up with, hey, man, the Bible tells us to act like men, we automatically get a picture of
some movie star that we think is real strong.
What's one of your favorite movie stars that you think is a man?
Probably Maximus in Gladiator.
Maximus.
So we begin to fashion our understanding of manhood after Maximus.
Right.
Who led, who was a slave, who was a son that became a slave, a slave that became a leader or whatever.
But that's not the real picture that we should be looking at.
We should be looking at Jesus. 100%.
Jesus really shows us how to be a man.
He shows us how to be a human that is a man.
And so when we look at Jesus, we know that he wept.
We know that he was strong.
We know that at times he got angry, but he did not sin.
So Paul says, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood.
So we're not fighting the people around us as men.
We're not fighting our kids.
We're not fighting our spouse.
Our struggle is not against flesh and blood.
but spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms, rulers, authorities, powers of this dark world.
So there's a spiritual cosmic battle over our soul.
Paul says, because you're in this battle,
Put on the full armor of God because the evil day is coming.
That evil day can be a bad day for you.
It could be the day of temptation.
Every man is tempted.
I don't care who you are unless you're dead.
Temptation is tempting.
Yeah, temptation is tempting.
You ever tempted, man?
Oh, yeah, always.
Share some of your temptation.
What's your greatest temptation?
Probably money.
Money.
just wanting more money and I have to remember like where I'm called to be yeah money money money because if I I can easily and I'm sure other young men definitely can agree or feel you know part of this but uh
You can get to that point where you just want to make so much.
You get distracted from what God's calling you to do right now.
Like right now, I'm the youth pastor at Bridge Church.
My goal is to connect all youth to the person, power, and purpose of Jesus Christ.
And if I can easily start looking at, okay, what side business can I do?
Okay, what else can I do?
What hustle?
What side hustle, yeah.
What company can I raise up?
Yeah, exactly.
And so I have to remember, don't let that become a distraction.
I have to bring my flesh wanting more money back to where it needs to be and correct it, deny the desires of my flesh, and walk in the will of God and call that he's calling me to right now.
Yeah, and, you know, money is not evil.
Right.
Right.
It's amoral.
Money takes on the morality of the person.
So the Bible says money is not evil.
It says the love of money is the root of all evil.
So it doesn't mean that God doesn't want you blessed, but we have to be content where we're at in the moment.
And sometimes the pursuit of money comes out of discontentment.
I could be making more.
I can be doing this.
But we must allow God to prosper us.
If God prospers us in his timing, there's no strings attached to it.
There's no sorrow with it.
There's no pain with it.
Bishop T.D.
Jakes once wrote a book, Can You Stand to Be Blessed?
Even as you increase in money, in finances, material wealth...
The temptation at that moment is to put all your trust in that.
Even the nation of Israel, when they would prosper in the Old Testament, they often left God.
They forgot God, and they went after idols.
And so as men, we've got to keep our focus.
We've got to stand strong.
Yeah, we've got to provide for our family.
We've got to protect our family.
We can't let money become our God.
You can't serve two masters.
Right.
You're either going to love one or hate the other.
You can't love them both at one time.
God is a jealous God.
He doesn't want to be the second person that's loved.
He said, put on the full armor of God so when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground.
And having done all to stand, stand.
Stand firm then with a belt of truth.
Truth is important.
Yes.
The breastplate of righteousness in place protects our heart.
With your feet, fit it with the readiness of the gospel of peace.
In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil.
The shield of faith.
We're not talking about Captain America's shield.
We're not talking about the lid of a trash can that you used when you were a kid to block rocks or snowballs.
We're talking about a huge shield that these Roman soldiers – you can see these shields in the movie Gladiator.
They're putting up the shields.
They're blocking all the fiery darts.
So the fiery darts here, Paul gives us a metaphor.
These fiery darts are the thoughts the enemy throws our way.
And we block those with faith.
And we have to watch our minds, man.
And he says you can extinguish all the flaming darts, not some of them.
These darts are coming from the evil one.
It's coming from the world system.
And he says take on the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.
So if we're going to stand strong, we've got to have all this armor in place.
Now, this armor...
points to a person.
It's Jesus.
Every piece of armor is Jesus.
The breastplate of righteousness, Jesus is our righteousness.
The shoes of peace, Jesus is our peace.
The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, Jesus is the Word made flesh.
All these point to Jesus, the shield of faith.
Jesus is our faith.
Right.
Right.
You know, the belt of truth.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
So it's not so much that you're putting on individual pieces, because Paul says in Romans 13, put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
So when you're in Christ and you remain in Christ, guess what?
The shield's there, the belt's there, the breastplate's there, the shoes are there, the sword of the Spirit's there, the helmet's there.
Jesus is all of that.
And sometimes we think, oh, man, I ran outside without my helmet on today.
No, when you get up, you just declare, I am in Christ, and today I'm going to remain in Christ.
Yeah.
And everything I need is going to be found in him.
And so we stay ready because we're living in an evil day, man.
Yeah.
Romans 13 says, So Paul, once again, he says this spiritual armor is the armor of light.
Jesus said, He goes on to say, So all this points to Jesus.
It is all about Jesus.
Now, being a youth pastor, a man who is a youth pastor, do you see the fight being taken to the youth of America, to young men?
Where do you see that fight happening in young men's lives today?
especially for the young men I see it I mean the world's coming straight for their identity I mean in everything they do I mean we see just might get a little graphic here but we see people putting opposite sex and like guys trying to be in girls sports girls trying to be in guys sports calling themselves something they're not so they're constantly seeing these things that the world says is okay
The world says it's fine, it's normal.
These people need to be who they want to be.
So how confusing is that to the young men of this generation that don't know how to put on the armor of God or how to stand?
And so I think for this younger generation, they need...
They need men in their life who they can see examples of what it looked like to stand, what it looked like to put on the armor, what it looked like that when culture around them was saying one thing was okay when it's completely against what the Bible says, to stand against that and say, I can't get with that.
Yeah, because there is a spirit of confusion that is happening in our world.
I think a lot of that is coming from the breakdown of the family.
For many families, dad's not there.
If he is there, he's checked out emotionally.
He's checked out spiritually.
He's not in his proper role as a father, a godly father.
So I think there's a lot of confusion that creeps into young men's lives.
And they begin to question their identity, especially when the world is constantly telling you there are more than two genders.
And when biology teaches you that there's only two, male and female, and the Word of God only teaches you there's only two.
And so we live in an enlightened culture where they were always saying science, science, science.
And now since science proved there's two genders, now they're going away from science and saying there are multiple genders that people can be.
And so we live in a generation where this young people, young men are confused.
And so that becomes a weight on us who are older in our late 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, that we become role models to help mentor some of these guys and to help them through the struggles of life.
In fact, when you talk about the armor of God, sometimes you need somebody to help you put the armor on.
You know what I'm saying?
You've got to help young guys to learn how to put the armor on.
How do you walk a Christ-like life in the world in which we live in?
And sometimes we neglect the next generation, which we should have a heart for the next generation.
And, you know, men struggle in multiple ways.
But we need to stand strong.
We need to act like men.
Act like men.
Put on the armor of God.
And then the last thing that Paul says, some people call this the seventh piece of armor.
He says, pray in the Spirit on all occasions.
To pray in the Spirit.
What does that mean to pray in the Spirit?
It means to pray in the Spirit.
It means in God.
pneuma, in the breath of God, to pray in accordance with the Spirit, pray under the influence and the power of the Holy Spirit.
You know, some people say, Paul was saying, he was talking about praying in a prayer language here, praying in tongues.
From a Greek standpoint, from a context standpoint, that's not what he's saying, but it can be a part of what he's saying.
Yeah.
What he's saying is just be in the Spirit when you're praying.
Be Spirit-led in your prayers, whether it's intercession, whether it's the prayer of petition, the prayer of thanksgiving, the prayer of agreement.
When you're praying for other people, pray in the Spirit.
Micah, young man, from your perspective, is it important for other young men and men in general to have other good Christian men?
Oh, absolutely.
To go back to what we were talking about with their identity being attacked, it's not only being attacked just from the confusion standpoint, but on the opposite end, they're following these guys who do push this –
I guess you could call it toxic masculinity, that's saying you're a man.
You get what you want.
You chase the money.
Have the nice cars.
Wake up.
You need to start an online business.
You need to do this.
You need to do this.
And that's what makes a man.
And if they're following these guys, they're not waking up first thing in the morning and putting on the armor.
They're waking up, checking the stock market.
But I think they have to have guys in their life.
And I think it's a call to the men in the church.
especially to not just say, well, this generation is just lost, I'm done, and then worry about yourself.
I think it's a call to us to reach out, and especially because a lot of these young men don't have fathers who are active in their life.
So we have to step in and be that voice
in their life that calls them to a higher standard, that calls them to wake up, deny yourself, put on the cross, and carry your cross, put on the armor every day.
Because, I mean, every day these guys wake up, their alarm goes off, they pull out their phone, they start scrolling.
And immediately those fiery darts of the devil are starting to get shot.
And if they're not waking up, getting in his word, praying, and putting on the armor of God, then those darts start to creep in first thing in the morning.
Even science and psychology say never turn on your phone as soon as you get up because your cortisol level goes up, your stress level goes up as soon as you look at social media, and people live on overload.
And so we live in a day where we shouldn't continue to overload our soul.
We need to simplify our soul.
We need to simplify our lives.
And sometimes you have to push social media aside, begin to get on a new diet spiritually and grow in Christ.
And sometimes you have to simplify your life.
And I'm a big proponent of that, man.
Live life simply because the fact is more cars, more houses, more money will never satisfy your soul.
Right.
Sometimes the more you have, the more complicated life becomes.
And I think we're called to live a simple life.
That doesn't mean you can't be blessed.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't work.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't make good money.
That's not what I'm saying.
I'm just saying if you're constantly unfulfilled, wanting more, you're in the rat race, and you become discontent, something's wrong with that picture.
Yeah.
because Christ should be the person who satisfies us continually.
Micah, man, it's been awesome to have you on the podcast.
I hope you kill a big deer this year.
I hope so.
You're a great fisherman.
You're a great preacher of the gospel, great dad, great husband, and we appreciate you, man.
Thank you once again for being on the Reset Podcast, and we will see you guys next Monday.