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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.
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NEW EPISODE EVERY WEDNESDAY.
Welcome to the Reset Podcast.
I hope you guys are doing great.
We're going to talk about prayer today, how important prayer is.
You know, Paul said in Ephesians 6.10, he said, "...be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might."
Be strong.
you know i grew up weight training i grew up playing football baseball basketball we were often in the gym in fact my brother was a bodybuilder at one time and we loved working out so i worked out through middle school high school and into college got married and continued a small workout but as we had kids i got away from working out
But recently, in the last four months, I got back in the gym, hired a trainer.
His name is Steven Johnson, and Steven has been wearing me out in the gym.
And when I first began weight training again in my mid-50s now, man, it was hard.
The weight was heavy.
But now, the same 100 pounds feels a lot lighter.
The weight didn't get lighter, I just got stronger.
In life, life doesn't get lighter, it doesn't get easier, but prayer makes us stronger.
It really does make us stronger.
Ian Bounds once said, "'Prayer does not prepare us for the greater work, "'it is the greater work.'"
And prayer sometimes feels like work.
And for guys, I know sometimes it's hard to pray.
It's hard to know what words to say.
If you're married, sometimes it's hard to pray in front of your wife or lead your wife or your children in prayer.
But prayer doesn't have to be complicated.
It doesn't have to be always the right words.
You don't have to know deep theology to pray well.
You just have to simply learn to be open, vulnerable, and communicate with God.
God is not looking for eloquence.
He is looking for heart.
He is looking for somebody who is speaking from their heart.
Guys, you don't have to be bashful about prayer.
Just learn to speak to God.
Spend some quality time every day of your life communing with the one who created you and designed you.
In Ephesians 6, Paul tells us to be strong, and then he tells us how we can be strong.
He tells us that if we'll put on the armor of God, we can be strong.
He names each piece of this armor in Ephesians 6.
He says, "...put on the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit, the helmet of salvation, the belt of truth."
He says, "...put on the shoes of peace."
There's something unique about each individual piece of armor.
It points us to Jesus.
The belt of truth points us to Jesus because Jesus is truth.
The breastplate of righteousness points us to Jesus because he is our righteousness.
The helmet of salvation, it points us to Jesus because he is our salvation.
The shoes of peace, guess what?
It points us to Jesus.
He's our peace.
All these pieces of armor point us to Jesus.
Even the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, Ephesians says, points us to Jesus.
Because Jesus, according to John 1, was the Word made flesh.
And so Paul gives us all this spiritual armor, and then he says in Ephesians 6, 18 through 20, he says, "...and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.
With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people."
He says, "...pray also for me that whenever I speak..."
Words may be given to me so that I may fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel for which I'm an ambassador in chains.
Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should.
Paul understood the power of prayer, and he also understood the power of someone praying for him.
Prayer was a vital part of his life, and as believers, as followers of Christ, as men, guess what?
We are called to be people of prayer.
Prayer is powerful.
See, the armor is no good unless there's a prayer life that surrounds it.
Men, Paul said, fight the good fight of faith.
When he spoke to his spiritual son Timothy, he was young in the faith and young chronologically compared to him.
He says, Timothy, you need to fight the good fight of faith.
Because Paul understood this Christian life is not a playground, it's a battleground.
That's right, it is a battleground.
So he says, in addition to all this armor...
On all occasions, pray in the Spirit.
Now, what does it mean to pray in the Spirit?
According to Paul, he's talking about the manner in which we pray.
He's not talking about a type of prayer necessarily.
He's talking about a manner of prayer.
We pray in the Spirit.
If we're praying a prayer of petition,
We need to pray that prayer of petition in the spirit.
What is a prayer of petition?
The prayer of petition is when I ask God for something I need.
I see a lack in my life.
I see a deficiency in my life.
I need God to supply a need.
I need God to do something that I can't do.
I ask him.
I petition him.
Actually, Paul said in Philippians 4, 4, be anxious for nothing but in everything with prayer, petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God and the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.
So he says, bring your petitions when you feel worried.
Men, we often feel worried.
We often feel stress.
We often feel anxiety over jobs, over marital relationships, over
over co-worker-employee relationships, employer relationships.
There's a lot of anxiety.
There's a lot of angst.
And Paul says the thing that fights anxiety is not you getting in your head, not you just getting in your man cave and trying to medicate your way out of anxiety.
No, the way to really overcome anxiety is to bring the need that you have, the worry, the stress, the anxiety, the overload.
You bring it to God with a petition, and you ask God to do something in your life.
You see, that word petition comes from a Greek word that means to lack, to be in want.
I want to give you a couple things that I believe that are keys to effective prayer when it comes to petition.
When you bring your need to God, guys, don't be generic.
Be specific, number one.
Be very specific.
What do you need?
What do you need God to do in your life?
What is that specific area that you want him to do a miracle in?
Do you need money?
Do you need a job?
If you need a job, get very specific.
Say, God, I want a job.
I want a job that pays me this much.
I want these kind of benefits.
I want to work in this area in life.
And be very specific.
You've got to learn how to ask.
Because Jesus said in Matthew 7, 7, he says, Ask, and it will be given unto you.
Seek, and you will find.
Knock, and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, say everyone, everyone who asks receives.
The one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
In the original language, it actually reads this way.
Ask and keep on asking.
Seek and keep on seeking.
Knock and keep on knocking.
The idea is you just don't ask one time, you just don't seek one time, and you just don't knock one time.
You have a persistency in your asking.
You have a persistency in seeking the Lord.
You have a persistency on knocking on that door until something happens.
There's a persistence.
There's a dynamic of I'm not going to give up.
I'm going to be tenacious until I see the promise, until I see the lack that I have, that need that I have in my life met by God.
Number two, let prayer be driven not by eloquence.
but by need.
Sometimes we come to God and we think we have to know all the right words and we have to be eloquent and we have to be deep and we have to know our theology.
We have to know every book of the Bible.
That's not what it's about.
God doesn't hear eloquent prayers.
He hears prayers from the heart.
You don't have to get eloquent.
You don't have to get long winded.
Just pray.
With the need in mind, but understanding that you're not the solution, God is.
Don't give up when it comes to prayer.
I believe sometimes we give up way too fast.
You might be saying, well, why would God want me to keep asking?
Why would God want me to keep seeking?
Why would God want me to keep knocking?
Why would God want me to keep knocking?
I believe God designed prayer this way.
Oftentimes, we think prayer is just to get a need met.
Actuality, the full purpose of prayer is to know God.
It's in the persistent asking, seeking, and knocking that we begin to know God.
And in that place of prayer, our lives are being chiseled and fashioned into the image of Jesus.
You know, I love Scripture, and when I look at all these great spiritual heroes of faith in the Bible, sometimes we think these guys were superhuman.
We think they were supernatural beings that are on the pages of the Bible.
Each one of these men in the Bible—
Paul says, act like men.
Each one of them acted like men, meaning this, that they had flaws.
They had deficiencies.
They had hang-ups.
They had problems.
They often felt stress.
They often felt anxiety.
They had emotional ups and downs.
Just read the Psalms and you discover that there in David's life, he had mountaintop experiences and he had valley experiences.
And I love what James chapter 5 says.
Elijah was an incredible prophet of the Old Testament.
But it says this about this guy who called down fire from heaven.
It says this, Elijah was a human being even as we are.
James 5, 17.
I love that.
I don't know about you, but that gives me comfort.
It gives me a sense, hey, man, I'm just a man.
I'm just a human being.
I have my flaws.
I might be good in one area, but I've got deficiencies in other areas.
But if God can use Elijah, he can use me.
If God can raise Elijah up and do miracles through his hands and his voice, God can use me.
Elijah was a man.
He was a man just like you and I. He was a human being.
But look what he did.
He prayed earnestly.
He prayed passionately.
He prayed fervently.
He prayed without giving up.
He knocked and he kept on knocking.
He sought God and he kept seeking God.
He wouldn't let go of God.
He kept earnestly praying.
He prayed and earnestly that it would not rain.
He was praying that the rain would stop.
And it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.
I don't know about you, but that is a powerful example of the power of prayer.
That prayer is a powerful thing.
That God hears us when we pray.
Now, if Elijah was a man just like us and God heard him, we must come to this conclusion that God hears us.
God is no respecter of persons.
God hears us.
He hears your prayer.
He hears my prayer.
Elijah prayed.
It's that same word that Paul uses in Ephesians 6, where he says, pray in the Spirit on all occasions.
That word pray is deisis.
In the Greek, it means to lack something.
It means to be in want.
Elijah had a lack.
He had a want.
He had a desire.
And he came to God and he prayed and he says, Lord, I pray that it would not rain for three and a half years.
Notice he prayed specifically.
He prayed specifically that it would not rain.
That's a specific prayer.
And look what happened.
God heard him.
He answered his prayer.
Guys, what if today each one of us
Young, old, married, unmarried, teenager, young adult, middle age, older adult, senior adult.
What if we prayed specific prayers?
What if we were persistent in our prayers?
What would happen if we would pray the prayer of petition in the Spirit?
You say, in the Spirit, what does it mean to pray in the Spirit?
If I'm going to pray the prayer of petition, what does it mean to pray in the Spirit?
Praying in the Spirit means to pray in accordance with God's Spirit, in accordance with God's Word.
Praying in the Spirit is praying in the authority of the Spirit, praying in the power of the Spirit, and praying the will of God.
When we pray in the Spirit, we're praying under the influence of the Spirit because we are filled with the Spirit.
Paul speaks about this in Ephesians chapter 5.
He says, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.
The days are evil.
Then he goes on to say, Do not be drunk with wine.
that leads to debauchery, but be filled with the Holy Spirit.
When we're filled with the Holy Spirit, our prayers come in line with the Spirit, and we pray under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
So he says, do not be drunk with wine.
What does that mean?
It says, don't be inebriated with alcohol.
Don't come under the influence of something that will manipulate your behavior.
Wake up.
Be alert.
1 Peter 5 says, be vigilant.
Be alert.
Be sober.
Because your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Satan is playing for keeps.
So we must not be under the influence of a drug or alcohol.
He says, but be filled with the Spirit.
Be filled with the Spirit.
Be filled with the Spirit, guys.
And when you're filled with the Spirit, your prayers are energized and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
To pray in the Spirit means to pray with the help of the Spirit, in connection with the Spirit, under the direction of the Spirit.
And sometimes that's hard because when we get in our time of prayer, we want to rush it.
But oftentimes, a practical key is this right here.
When you first begin to pray, just quiet your soul.
Quiet your mind.
Quiet all the distractions around you until you sense the Holy Spirit coming and abiding.
I can tell you this, even in my own life, dealing with worry and anxieties over my life, the thing that helped me the most outside God's Word is praying in the Spirit, praying daily, meditating on God's Word.
Why?
Because it strengthens me.
It makes me strong from the inside out.
From the inside out, it makes me strong.
So praying in the Spirit is the manner in which we pray.
A petition of prayer is a type of prayer.
Nor should we pray a prayer of petition, but we can also pray a prayer of agreement.
Matthew 18, 19 says, Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them.
The prayer of agreement.
It's when I come together with other believers, and that word agree comes from a Greek word, symphono.
We get our word, the root word, symphony from that.
A symphony is when many instruments come together and play beautiful music because they're harmonizing together.
I mean, you can't pray the prayer of agreement unless you're in a company of other men where two or three are gathered.
That's why, guys, we cannot be isolated so we can medicate our problems.
No, isolation is a tactic of the enemy that saps your strength, that causes you to crumble, and causes you to walk in places of isolation.
I know we, in America, we love our man cave.
Guys, we love our man cave.
But sometimes that man cave becomes our man prison.
We isolate ourselves.
And so that's why small groups are so important.
That's why connecting with other men is so important.
Find your tribe.
Find your guys.
Get in godly relationships.
Man, I'm in a small group.
I'm in a small group of guys, man, that really hold each other up.
We pray for each other.
When somebody's down, we lift them up because there's something about being together.
In fact, Solomon said, two is better than one.
If one falls, the other will pick him up.
I mean, a sad thing is sometimes we have nobody to pick us up.
We have nobody to pick us up, guys, because we won't invest.
We will not invest into the relationships that we need.
And oftentimes when we have isolated ourselves and we have gotten ourselves into a pickle, we've gotten ourselves into a mess, then we try to connect with other guys.
or other dudes.
We try to get into the small group.
But it's at that moment we haven't made a deposit, and because we haven't made a deposit, we can't make a withdrawal.
So I want to encourage you to get into a small group.
Get plugged in because prayer is powerful, and when we get plugged in together, something happens.
Paul and Silas in Acts 16, they were in prison, but they were in prison together.
The Bible says about midnight they began to pray and they began to sing songs and spirit songs and hymns.
And I believe as they were praying, each of them heard the other's voice as they were praying and singing and they were encouraged.
God heard their prayers.
God heard their praise.
And the Bible says God caused an earthquake to shake that prison.
The prison door was open and they walked in freedom.
How many of you know if you're going to walk in freedom, don't sit there and sing by yourself.
Don't sit there and pray by yourself.
There are times in your life you need somebody else to encourage you.
You need somebody else to lift you up.
You need somebody else that you can hear praying around you because the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
Guys, let's become men of prayer.
I'm not talking about praying an hour a day.
I'm just talking about having a time set aside where you quiet your soul, you quiet your mind, and you begin to meditate on God's goodness.
And then you begin to pray.
Prayer is a petition.
You lay it out to God, this is what I need.
You can lay out your anxiety.
You can come to God and say, Lord, man, I am hurting.
I'm frustrated.
My marriage is not right.
My job is not fulfilling.
These employees that I have are not working as they should.
My employer, supervisor, that relationship's not working.
Well, my health is off.
My mind seems cloudy.
I seem down.
Lord, I bring you these petitions.
Lord, I have needs.
I have lack in my life.
But here's the deal.
Prayer is me submitting myself to God.
Prayer says this, guys, that I can't do it by myself.
Prayer says this, that I am not strong enough.
And sometimes we don't want to admit that.
Guys, I don't know about you, but man, sometimes I can be real prideful.
I can be real arrogant.
But prayer says this, Lord, I'm going to submit to you.
I am going to humble myself under your mighty hand.
I am going to come under your authority and allow you to work in my life.
Let me ask you this.
When's the last time you prayed?
When's the last time you prayed?
Paul said, pray on all occasions in the Spirit.
All occasions.
The good times, the bad times, the valley times, the mountain peak times.
The times that things are good, the times that things are bad.
The time when the businessman is thriving and the time when the business is struggling.
Paul said, pray on all occasions.
Jesus modeled this.
Jesus, who was our Savior in the flesh while he was walking in Galilee, modeled prayer.
He modeled prayer.
He modeled the prayer and the life of prayer.
He was connected to his Heavenly Father.
You know, if your blood stopped flowing in your veins, guys, think about this.
If your blood stopped flowing, you're dead.
If prayer stops flowing from your lips, you die spiritually.
There's no way to live because prayer is the lifeline to our spiritual growth.
So maybe you need a reset in your life.
You need some things to be reset in your life.
Some things are missing.
Some things have gone lacking in your life.
Did you know prayer offers that reset?
I want to encourage you, over the next couple days, over the next three to five days, until we meet next Monday, commit to praying every day.
Every day.
Set aside a time, a place to pray.
A time and a place.
It's very effective.
And I guarantee you, after about two or three days, when you get to that time and you find that place of prayer, God will meet you there supernaturally.
You will experience the presence of God.
He will be waiting on you.
And you say, man, that doesn't feel manly.
Don't get your definition of manhood from the world.
Our definition of manhood comes from Jesus.
Though Jesus was strong, he was weak enough to pray.
Amen.
He was the son of God, and he still prayed.
He still sought to have relationship with his father.
And in the most critical time of his life, he brought his disciples to a mount, and he says, guys, can you pray with me one hour?
One hour.
He went to that place of prayer and he began to pray and he came back and his disciples were asleep.
Disciples were snoring.
Guys, they were snoring.
They were snoring.
Are we snoring when we should be praying?
Can we pray?
We live in a culture that is pulling at us from every direction.
We're tempted with many things.
But prayer is the power that connects us to God.
It connects us to God, guys.
I'm going to tell you right now, life might not get easier.
It might get harder.
It might get harder.
But prayer will make you stronger.
For greater is he that is in us, guys, than he that is in the world.
You know, I have to lift weights to train my physical body, to keep my physical body in shape.
I have to walk.
I have to do cardio.
If we're going to keep our spiritual balance,
Bodies in shape.
Spiritual men or man in shape.
We're going to have to do some prayer.
We're going to have to read the Word of God.
Guys, I want to remind you that prayer works.
And prayer works on you because it's during those times of prayer that God resets our lives and makes us more like his son, Jesus.
I want to thank you for joining us today on Reset.
We've talked about prayer.
And next week, we're going to come back and talk about prayer.
Don't miss it.
Tell your friends about it.
We look forward to seeing you on the Reset podcast with Archie Callahan next week.