Keep Careful Watch on Your Life | Jim Samra (Preaching and the Pastor Theologian Episode 2)

CPT fellow and senior pastor of Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Jim Samra, joins Joel Lawrence and Matt Kim for episode two of Preaching and the Pastor Theologian. Together, they explore the connection between a pastor’s inner life and the ministry of preaching. Samra reflects on the church as a “pillar” and “conduit” between heaven and earth, emphasizing how a preacher’s holiness and attentiveness to God enable this connection. He shares practical rhythms of prayer, fasting, accountability, and sermon preparation rooted in dependence on the Holy Spirit. The conversation also delves into his understanding of prophecy, hearing God’s voice, and cultivating a congregation that listens for divine guidance. In closing, Samra discusses the importance of “cleaning up contaminated land” within the church—acknowledging past wounds and cultural sins so that the body of Christ can truly embody healing and holiness in its community and witness.

Living Church - Awe and Presence

Transcript

Jim Samra: 0:01

I also think if we're gonna be a pillar, the church is gonna be a pillar and a conduit from heaven to earth, then we're gonna have to clean up some contaminating things, some traumatizing things, so that when a, for example, a person of color walks into our church, they're not triggered in such a way that they're unable to hear from the Lord because they're living unpoisoned.

Joel Lawrence: 0:27

Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode two of our preaching in the pastor theologian podcast series. I'm Joel Lawrence. I serve as the president of the Center for Pastor Theologians, and I'm here with my co-host for this series, Matt Kim, who serves as professor of preaching and pastoral leadership at Truett Seminary. Hello, Matt. Good to see you. Hey, Joel. Good to be with you. So today on the episode, we're speaking with Jim Samra, who serves as minister and senior pastor of Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Jim has a THM from Dallas Seminary and a D Phil from Oxford University. And we wanted to bring Jim on to talk about the cultivation of the inner life of the pastor and its relation to preaching. We talked in our last episode with Kimlin Bender, kind of a theological framework, and now wanted to move from a theological framework, pairing that with kind of an inner reflection on the life of the preacher. And the title of the episode today is Keep Careful Watch on Your Life, taken from 1 Timothy 4.16, which says, Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by doing so, you will save both yourself and your hearers. I like the connection that this verse makes between the health of the preacher and the ministry of preaching. And so, Matt, as we turn to this conversation with Jim, would love just to hear your thoughts, how how you have, in your pastoral ministry and your teaching ministry, thought about this theme of keeping careful watch on our life and how how that connects to your sense of the call to preach.

Matt Kim: 2:15

Yeah, Joel, that's a great question. Uh I'm reflecting back on my ministry years, and I remember discipling one guy who had been in and out of prison. One of the things that we did together was play basketball together at 24 Hour Fitness. And uh, I remember him looking over at me one uh afternoon and just saying, Hey Matt, uh you your life must be really hard. And I thought to myself, Well, this is the guy speaking who's been in and out of prison. And so he looks over and he says that, and I said, Why is that? And he goes, You have to be perfect, and I don't. And I think that really is an illustration of this text, is that people may not say it as bluntly as he did that day, but uh I I I confess that in that moment I was a little bit irritated, and I think it was I was irritated because I am not perfect and I do struggle. Yeah, uh, and yet we are called to a higher standard. And so it just reminds me of uh James uh three. Um there there's a power and a reminder that uh I need to be close to the Lord and I need to live a life that is worthy of the gospel, as Paul says in other texts. So uh Jim's conversation here is a good reminder uh as he is pursuing godliness in his pastorate that hopefully uh this uh as it's broadcast to listeners, it's just a good reminder that we are being watched and we don't want to be paranoid about it, but we are being watched, and we do want to model to the church uh what it looks like to uh be close to Christ.

Joel Lawrence: 3:47

Yeah, and and I think uh with that, the the responsibility of the call that can go sideways sometimes, right? That can go into you know, at one level it can go into a sense of self-importance. At another level, it can go into paranoia, as you're talking about, or or a perfectionism. But I think what um what I I've learned over the years is how that must focus me on the depths of the grace of God because of the awareness that I am far from perfect and yet want to be striving towards Christ and Christ-likeness and godliness in his power and in his grace. And I'm excited to share this conversation with listeners. Jim has just such a unique viewpoint on a lot of these things and really, I think, born out of a vibrant relationship with God that comes out in the conversation. So um we're grateful for him and and his sharing of his story and and uh excited for folks to to hear the conversation. So let's turn to that now. Jim, it's great to have you back on the podcast. Thanks so much for joining us for this conversation.

Jim Samra: 5:08

Thanks, Joel. Thanks, Matt. It's great to be with you guys.

Joel Lawrence: 5:11

Yeah, good to good to connect again. I always I always love connecting with with Jim. We I think we talked about this a bit on the main podcast when we had you on to tell your story, but we were in seminary together and have been in various places in the UK at the same time. And uh I have two daughters who are in college not too far from where Jim is, and he and his wife Lisa have have helped take care of them. So we're very grateful for, I'm very grateful for the Samura family and um so excited to have this conversation as we're thinking about preaching and the pastor theologian and digging in today to thinking about this this theme of keeping careful watch on your life. Um before we get into that, Jim, uh you have been on the podcast before, but I want to help help us uh remind us about who you are. Tell us a bit about your faith journey, educational journey, pastoral experience, all that good stuff.

Jim Samra: 6:08

Sure. Uh maybe by way of introduction, I would just say, since you said very kind things about me, um, you know, the longer I've been in ministry, uh, one of the sweet joys is to get to do it with friends. And so of course we can just do it, you know, with strangers or by ourselves. But when you get it to, when you get to do it with somebody that you've shared life with for a long time. So, Joel, I love anytime I get to interact with you. And I'm really grateful that the Lord has uh kind of provided this opportunity to continue to do ministry together. Uh and then Matt, I don't know as well, but um, yeah, recently our local theologian fellowship has been reading Matt's book and discussing it. And you know, when you read a book like Preaching Uh to People Uh in Pain, and Matt, you shared so much of your story uh in there about your brother and other things. It was so powerful. You feel like you know somebody. And so uh, Matt, this is great to get to just have another opportunity to engage together. Uh so thanks for being willing to do this.

Matt Kim: 7:05

Thank you, Jim.

Jim Samra: 7:06

Let's see. What's the quick introduction? Um, I'm from Grand Rapids, Michigan. My grandparents were born in Syria. When my grandparents immigrated to America, uh, they were uh a Syrian Orthodox, and the Orthodox Church really had a profound impact on uh our family's life, especially when my grandfather on my dad's side died when my dad was four years old, and the Orthodox Church really took him in and mentored him and loved him. Along the way, um my dad, as he got older, was in a Bible study at the uh in the Orthodox Church. And uh crazily enough, kind of in studying the Bible, kind of on his own, and sort of through that, he came to faith. He read John 8, and he was waiting through the Gospel of John, and Jesus spoke to him, and he was radically transformed. I was like four years old at the time. And uh, yeah, so I grew up in a family where, man, we love Jesus. And, you know, he was doing crazy stuff in our lives. And so, um, yeah, I grew up in uh in a family that that did love Jesus. We did make the very hard choice to leave the Orthodox church because uh we weren't connecting maybe as well. And we went to a Baptist church, which for Orthodox people that's that's kind of that. But I would say that the Lord used that really powerfully. Um when I was a junior in high school, I had my own, even though I was probably a Christian before then, I had my own really powerful experience of coming to meet Jesus. Uh, he kind of set me on a path towards ministry. Um, I ended up going to uh University of Michigan, got to meet Joel at Dallas Seminary along with uh my current wife, uh, who I met there, which was fantastic. Uh, we went and spent some time in England uh doing a PhD. And then I thought we would sort of spend the rest of our time kind of overseas. We loved England. We loved kind of being out of Grand Rapids. And the Lord was like, No, no, no, you're going back to Grand Rapids. And I tried to tell Jesus, I was like, Well, you're the one that said going to Nazareth wasn't great. And his response to me was, Well, I still went, didn't I? So we came back to Grand Rapids. Checkmate. Checkmate. Yeah, that's right. He always wins. That's how that works. Uh, we thought we'd stayed for a few years. Um, we moved back to the country on uh Monday. The senior pastor of the church we're going to work for resigned on Tuesday. Uh, and so they needed somebody to kind of step in. So that was 20 years ago. And so here we are for 20 years, and the Lord's been incredibly faithful. And so, yeah, I serve as the senior pastor uh at Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and have done that for about uh 20 years now.

Joel Lawrence: 9:54

Well, Jim, uh, we have brought you on for this conversation. You know, in in episode one, we did kind of a theological framework for this series. Now, here in episode two, we're wanting to dig in a little bit more to the to the life of the preacher with with God and kind of thinking about how the theological framework and the life of the preacher and our life with God fit together. And and the the title that we have used for this episode is out of 1 Timothy 4, 16. So would love to begin with some of your reflections on how you stand, uh, how you understand particularly this phrase kind of keeping careful watch on your life. Um, what does that mean to you as you think about your calling as a pastor and as a preacher?

Jim Samra: 12:03

Yeah, if I can, just partly, maybe it's my New Testament background, but like, can I back us up into 1 Timothy 3? Um, I got an NIV here, so it might be different than the version you're using. But uh back in in chapter three, it says in verse 15, it calls the church the pillar and foundation of truth. I think this is actually the setup for what's going to happen in chapter four. But my understanding of pillar was always kind of like support, like it was this support structure kind of deal. But the more I've kind of been meditating on this and praying about this and trying to listen to the Lord on this, it's interesting that the first time the word pillar gets used in the Bible, it's not supporting anything. It's in Genesis 28, and Jacob takes the stone he's been sleeping on when he has this dream and he stands it upright, and it's kind of the same word for the staircase standing on the earth, and he stands it up as a pillar, and he says, he makes a vow to God, and he's like, Lord, if you take care of me, then I'll come back here, and this stone will be God's house, which is kind of a weird thing. It's not that he says the stone is going to be part of God's house or he's gonna build God's house, but the stone itself is gonna be God's house. And you get the sense that this pillar that gets set up is this connection between heaven and earth. And that just as Jacob dreamed this staircase and God's on top and angels are ascending and descending, he kind of sets up this pillar to represent that at Bethel, you know, there is this, it's the house of God. It's this connection between heaven and earth. So, and even if you look in the Old Testament, the kind of the most famous pillar in the Old Testament is the pillar of fire, which isn't really supporting anything. I mean, God's not like propped up by this pillar, but it's this connection between heaven and earth. And then you get to the temple and you find out there are two freestanding pillars in front of the temple that Solomon names Boaz and Jacan. And these pillars aren't supporting anything. I think they're a call back to Genesis 28. So when I get to 1 Timothy 3, this idea that the church is the pillar and found, I think the foundation brings the structural side, but the pillar language is it's a connection between heaven and earth, that the church exists as the house of God, connecting uh, you know, what God is doing with what's supposed to happen on earth. With that, you kind of come into 1 Timothy 4. And, you know, Paul starts out with the spirit clearly says that in latter times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars. So the sense is is like the hypocritical liars are like this pillar. They're like, they're a conduit through which the demons are bringing false teaching. And then you're gonna get a whole bunch of language about your character as a pastor and a preacher in 1 Timothy 4 and godliness and why that's so important, which leads to, you know, 1 Timothy 4, 13. Until I come devote yourself to the public reading of scripture and to preaching and to teaching, do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you. And you get this idea like from 1 Corinthians 12, where spiritual gifts are manifestations of the spirit, and you get the sense that the preacher is this connection between heaven and earth. And so that when you get to 1 Timothy 4.16, watch your life and doctrine closely. Uh I think the word, you know, the Greek word there, uh dyscalia, can either be the content of your teaching or the way that you do teaching. I actually think it's the latter. And the idea is that the reason why your life is so important is that the church is the connection between heaven and earth. But when the preacher stands up to preach, he is fulfilling the role of the church in that moment. And the preacher is the connection between heaven and earth, which is why your life becomes so important. Because as opposed to thinking about teaching as kind of like this box of truth that you don't want to let any dirt get into and contaminate, it's more that your body, your soul, who you are, is this connection between heaven and earth. And God wants to speak through you as the preacher, which makes, you know, what you are doing and in your life so very important because if there's sin, if there's other things, if they're not connected to the Lord, you can't be that sort of pillar. So that's how I understand 1 Timothy 4, 16, is that what's most important is kind of the way we're teaching. We can either teach out of a kind of a repository of knowledge, or we can teach as a conduit between heaven and earth. And if you're gonna teach as a conduit between heaven and earth, then your life has to be able to be a conduit between heaven and earth.

Matt Kim: 17:09

That's a real powerful uh image, Jim. And uh just to pay you back a little bit of a compliment. Uh several years ago, I I had uh read a book called The Gift of Church. That's nice. Uh and uh that really uh blew my mind in many ways as you walk through the importance of the local body. And so I just want to uh encourage you in your work uh as you continue to pastor in Grand Rapids. Um of the things that we're trying to think about is how does how does a pastor do this? Uh, how does a pastor keep careful, careful watch over their life to be an example to the flock? Would you be willing to share any practices that you've cultivated over the years and and how you do that?

Jim Samra: 17:52

Yeah, so um there's some kind of practices of uh you know personal disciplines. And so uh as a pastor, you know, I've I've set aside time uh every morning uh for prayer. I'm not a morning person. And at some point just reading through the gospels, I don't know if Jesus was a morning person either, but he got up before it was uh light and he started praying. And at some point the Lord was like, look, if you're gonna be a conduit, if you're gonna be serious about this, Christians pray in the morning. We can pray at noon and we can pray at night too. Um, but sort of a discipline of the first fruits of your morning before you start and do anything uh is prayer. Uh I think that an important discipline is fasting. And so uh Monday is my fasting day to sort of fast and pray, especially about the sermon. Um, I have an accountability group, and so I just met with them yesterday. And uh these are people that I have met with for the last 20 years uh who do keep a watch on my life and ask questions uh to kind of help with those sorts of things. Um when I write sermons, uh I have a group of people who read them uh as a way of sort of an accountability to make sure that I'm not sort of just kind of preaching hobby horses or my own sort of uh ideas. We pretty systematically go through books of the Bible, which is another way to kind of keep your life and maybe even your preaching from sort of falling into, you know, political rhetoric or the kind of the hot button issues of the day. Uh and so right now we're going through Ecclesiastes, which is a relatively difficult book uh to preach. And then uh Lord willing, next uh year we're doing first, second, and third John. So those feel like some of the ways in which, you know, I want to keep my life sort of centered on God and what he wants. And then uh Joel could tell you I have a, you know, kind of a mystical, strange way of speaking about my relationship with God. We're getting to that. We're gonna talk about that. I would say that one of the kindnesses of the Lord is that he keeps me on a pretty short leash. And so, like he, when I sit down to pray, we usually start with the stuff in my life he doesn't like, and we got to deal with it. And he won't talk to me about lots of things until we talk about uh that kind of stuff. Um, and so yeah, I just that's not something I could manufacture on my own. I'm really grateful when I get frustrated about it. I keep trying to tell the Lord, please keep doing this, even though I don't like it. Um, but don't let me get away with stuff for long periods of time. And so I'm really grateful for that.

Joel Lawrence: 20:27

So you just mentioned this, Jim, your kind of the mystical way that you you talk about your relationship with God. Uh we've we've had lots of conversations about this. I think we talked about this when we had you on the podcast. I've long admired the way that you that you talk about your relationship with God, the not not just talk about it, the the way that you exemplify this relationship with God from from back in our in our seminary days. Um can you just talk to us a little bit more? I know this is kind of inviting ourselves into some of the intimacy that you have with the Lord, but I I think in this kind of thinking about this conduit pillar that you've been talking about and thinking about preaching in a theological context, but inevitably that of course means a deeply relational context. And and so I'd love just to invite you to to tell us a little bit about how you experience your relationship with God. Has this always been your experience? What w maybe what do times of distance or desert feel like? Yeah, just just reflect with us on that a bit.

Jim Samra: 21:42

Yeah, I just want to start with I've talked about this enough to know that um I can get I can cause people uh problems, uh if I'm not at least careful to say, that I think one of the some of the ways I talk about it reflect the fact, and it took me a long time to be able to say these words, reflect the fact that I have a gift of prophecy. Uh Joel and I both grew up in a tradition where we didn't, you didn't have that gift, that wasn't gift wasn't allowed, uh, unless we just simply called it preaching. Um but my experience in the New Testament and the Old Testament was um I understand what the Bible has to say about tongues or some unique things that go with tongues. But this idea that we would take a whole bunch of other gifts like miracles or healings or especially prophecy and put it into some sort of cessationist category. When I read 1 Corinthians 14, Paul is pushing people towards prophecy, not away from it. And when I get all the way to Revelation 22, I still got prophets. And I got false prophets and I got real prophets. And so this idea took me a long time to recognize that God still gives people gifts of prophecy today. And so some of my what feels very immediate, like very connected to God, is part of that gift of prophecy. And it's the same way that somebody who maybe has a gift of giving might feel like they walk into a room and just immediately feel like I know that I need to give some money to this person, like I just know it. I want to sort of couch my language in the sense of I think that if you have different gifts, you've experienced God in the same kind of way, but with some different circumstances. So I speak about God in very black and white kinds of things because that's how I experience him. But I'm always jealous of like musicians who experience music in really powerful, tangible ways and I don't, or artists who really experience art in very moving sort of ways and I don't. I want to be careful to say I do feel like I get to experience some spiritual stuff in very black and white, tangible kinds of ways. I think some of that has to do with some weaknesses that I have that the Lord is being gracious to, some of it has to do with uh gift of prophecy. Uh, and some of it has to do with, I don't know why the Lord chooses. Um, there are people in my congregation who they have dreams and visions. I've never had a dream or vision that felt like it was specifically the Lord speaking to me. I do hear the Lord talk to me regularly through his word a lot, maybe more than some other people do on a regular basis. Some people hear the Lord through nature. That's not as much my experience. And so it tends to be in sermons, in scripture reading. Um, we have a prayer and prophecy group that meets at our church. When I listen to other people speak uh during that session, I hear from God a lot. So I just want to couch that with everybody's got different gifts. But I would say that my journey has been a recognition of John 10, like Jesus is like, I'm the good shepherd. I lead my people and they hear my voice. I grew up in a tradition where we kind of thought about the will of God as like this circle that as long as you didn't transgress any of the moral commands, then you were kind of free to do whatever you wanted. The more I have engaged with David and Moses and Jesus through the scriptures, you realize that's not how they're living their lives. Like they seem to be an ongoing conversation with the Father. And then you think this is what the Spirit does. So this is a growing realization whereby I do think Jesus died and was raised from the dead. Again, in my seminary days, we made fun of the hymn, He lives, He lives, He lives, he, you know, He walks with me, talks with me. You asked me how I know He lives, and we were like, Well, that's not how you know He lives. We know He lives because of foundational truths. I think that's all true, but He is alive and like He sent His Spirit so that He could walk with us and not leave us as orphans. So I think it's been a growing willingness to let Him be Shepherd and to kind of walk into that. And I would just say it feels like every other relationship that I have. There's just been an ongoing deepening of it. There have been times where it feels like I'm struggling with my interactions with him. But at the end of the day, just like with my wife, I want to work through those struggles. And there's times when I'm like, I'm not sure I can talk to my wife about this right now. There are times in which I feel like I'm struggling to talk to the Lord about this thing right now, but I'm married to him. Like I want to keep working through that, and he won't let me go. And so yeah, it's just it's felt a lot like uh a real relationship.

unknown: 26:29

Yeah.

Joel Lawrence: 26:31

Thanks for sharing that, Jim. I I think that's I I I I love how you kind of put that in the context of of the gifts because I I I would I think one of the reasons I admire your relationship with God is it's mind's not the same in a lot of ways. And so I I think I take encouragement from that and that recognition of the the body of Christ. Um the fullness of God is is reflected in different ways. Um, but I'm so grateful for how he reflects himself through you because it gives me a great deal of encouragement and faith myself to see your faith. So I'm I'm grateful for that.

Matt Kim: 27:13

Yeah. Uh Jim, let's circle back to the text that we were looking at earlier, uh 1 Timothy 4, 16. There seems to be a weightiness in what Paul's instructing Timothy. Uh, in particular, uh the phrase basically your your pursuit of godliness uh will uh save yourself and and your hearers. Uh how do you understand that text, uh that portion of the text, and how has that influenced how you minister and preach?

Jim Samra: 27:43

Yeah, so I think it probably goes to the stuff we were saying earlier about being a pillar. At the end of the day, I'm obviously not saving anybody, but when you live your life and you preach and you are a conduit between heaven and earth, when you become somehow through Jesus, this stairway to heaven whereby God can reach into people's lives. God is saving people in and through you, which is a crazy thing. So just to give you a practical example, and this will go to some of the mystical stuff, my throat's a bit scratchy, and I'm nervous about being sick for we got a Seder meal tonight, we got Good Friday service, and then we got Easter services on Sunday. And so this morning I'm I've been trying to like take it easy and rest and all of those things. And this was one of those mornings where the Lord was like, Hey, look, I got we got something that's amiss. And I was like, What's wrong? And he's like, he took me to Colossians one, where Paul says, I fill up what is lacking in Christ's sufferings. And this idea is, is the Lord's like, I'm not bodily, Jesus, like, I'm not bodily present on the earth in the same sort of way, but I need people who are one with me to be willing to continue to suffer so that I can work through that suffering to reach people. And so he basically was like, stop trying to not get sick and just accept that this is part of the suffering in order for me to do what I want through your weakness. Um, you know, my grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in your weakness. I see all of those working together that if you are the preacher and the conduit, um, I remember going to uh Tony Evans' church when I lived in Dallas, and he got up one Sunday and talked about the fact that he stuttered, except when he preached. And that somehow when he got up, the spirit just spoke through him in such a powerful way that he stopped stuttering. That's what I think this is talking about is that when as a preacher you get plugged in and connected to heaven, that God is actually working through you, and you are seeing people get saved and be blessed, and you get to be a part of it, but ultimately, you know, uh, I can do nothing apart from from from God. And so I think that he's working through you to do that. But uh for whatever reason in his grace, we then get to be like a part of what's happening. And I think that's really, really powerful.

Joel Lawrence: 30:00

You mentioned uh prayer uh and the the place that that has in your life. How do you understand uh the relationship between prayer and preaching? Beyond like we pray and then we read the Bible when we make when we create our sermons, and then we get up Sunday morning and we pray before we preach. Take us a little deeper into how you understand kind of the vitality of prayer and its connection to uh to preaching, to your ability to be this conduit of the word of God. And then you mentioned getting up earlier. Are there other ways that you practice prayer that that deeply connects it to your ministry of preaching?

Jim Samra: 30:51

Great. Um maybe I could start with this. The school that Joel and I went to was uh founded by a guy named Louis Speary Chaefer, who nobody really pays any attention to. But he wrote this little book a long time ago called True Evangelism. And he was an evangelist. And I'm not an evangelist, and every evangelism book always like makes me feel super intimidated because the evangelist, it's kind of like a prophet talking about talking to the Lord, it feels intimidating. When you talk to an evangelist, you're just like, man, I am terrible at this. So I was really discouraged reading the book, but there was a phrase in there about why Lewis Spirit Schaefer didn't believe in altar calls. And what he said was, it's more important to talk to God about men than men about God. And that's always sort of stuck with me in this idea, is that, you know, in preaching, we're talking to humans, to people about God. But in reality, it's far more important to be talking to God about the people in our congregations. So with that kind of as the framework, what I would say is that when I started out from my seminary training, I was like, okay, I got an exegetical method, I got a homilodical method. I'm gonna, and that was very useful. And I in no way want to in any way uh downplay that. But I would say that in my life, that was a starting point and not an ending point. And instead of sort of like, I have honed that homilytical process, but instead of relying more and more on that, what I have found is that was more of a crutch that the Lord used, kind of like the law in Galatians 4 when you weren't quite ready to walk by faith. And what he's drawn is drawn me more and more into just listening to him. And so I spend a lot less time in commentaries and in studies than I did when I started. And I want to be careful, I've been doing this for 20 years. But I would say that basically what happens is that how prayer fits into this is Monday is the day I start studying. So I have a passage that I laid out uh on my on a study leave, usually uh uh six months before whatever. So I know what passage I'm in and I know a general idea. I've prayed through what it is I think I'm the Lord wants me to talk about. But Monday is a fasting and prayer day because the Lord's like, I don't want you studying in your strength. And so I feel weaker on Mondays. This is my chance to go to the Lord and say, Lord, what do you want to talk about? What do you want to say here? And so now this is where it gets weird, uh, but this is where I would say that I spend more of my time asking God, is this the introduction you want? Yes or no? No, what do you want to change about this? Do you like this example? Do you want me to take that example out? And so I'm spending Monday praying through uh the whole thing. And then on Monday, at the end of Monday, I've got an outline, usually. And so I ask the Lord, is this the outline you want? And uh if I get a yes, then Tuesday morning when I get up, I pray through it again. And then I write it. So I manuscript my sermons, so I write it out. And if it's not working, I'm trying to go back to the Lord and and and ask, what's not working here? Sometimes there's things like, well, I'm I'm using an example. Uh, so this week I'm preaching on the prodigal son for Easter, and the Lord led me to Matthew Perry's book, the guy who played uh Chandler on Friends. Uh he's got this memoir uh uh of him actually coming to faith, it seems like, in the book. And then he dies from a drug overdose. So just asking the Lord, like, is this what you want me to use for the opening? How do I use this? Do I talk about this aspect of this? Is this the quote you want me to use? So I spend a lot more time asking the Lord those sorts of things. But then to bring this back around to more sane people, I also, when it's done being written, I recognize that other people have gifts that I don't have. And so I send it out to people, especially with people gifts of discernment, especially Lisa. But there's about 10 people that get the sermon. They read it over and they send back their feedback. Meanwhile, I also should have said this: I have about 300 people in the church that have committed to pray for me every day. And so I send them prayer requests, usually about the sermon, like, hey, I'm struggling with the introduction, or could you pray for uh the gospel presentation part? I don't feel strong about that. So they're praying for me, but then I get the feedback back. And then on Wednesday, I try to pray through the feedback. Lord, what are the things? And oftentimes maybe a person with the gift of mercy will say, Hey, this example sounds good, but it feels like it's gonna hurt some people's feelings. So I pray through that. Uh, and then Thursday, I try to have the manuscript is all done. Uh, I put it away because Friday's my Sabbath. I think this is part of the if you're a workaholic, I don't think the Lord is gonna let you be a conduit. And then uh Saturday night at eight o'clock, I pick it back up. Uh, I read it out loud twice, pray through it again, try to outline it from memory, because I'm like, well, if I can't remember it, no one else is gonna remember it either. Sunday morning, I get up early, uh, early Sunday morning and spend uh, you know, some time praying. And then there's a group of people who meet for prayer at our church uh before the services, and they pray with me. And then there's a group of people who pray during the services uh while I'm preaching. Uh, and then I go home and take a long nap because I'm super exhausted, and then Monday comes back around again. So the difference is 20 years ago it was 90% study and 10% prayer. And now it's probably 80% prayer and 20% study.

Matt Kim: 36:34

We're uh thinking in in this series, uh the theological framework we're exploring is uh preaching God, listening church. And Jim, as you think about this, what is the emphasis for you in how God forms the church through the listeners? What's happening in the listeners uh and what is your relationship in that process? How are you thinking about the listeners as you're preaching? I know you touched on some of those things before, but could you speak to that emphasis on the hearers uh and what and what God is doing and what you're hoping God is doing in your church as you preach?

Jim Samra: 37:08

This may not be exactly your question. It might be. So if it's not and you want me to go a different direction, tell me. But uh, I'm already got myself in all sorts of hot water that you won't want to have me back on the podcast anyway. So I'm just gonna throw out another thing that is probably going to be pretty controversial. For me, on my growth as a preacher, there has been a letting go of uh the original context of the text. Meaning that I think what's been super important for the listeners uh that I'm speaking to is for them to realize God is speaking directly to them. I came from a model which was a little more like, well, this was written to say Corinth 2,000 years ago. If I can find enough connections between Corinth and today, then I can build a bridge hermeneutically, and then I can say, well, something that's going on today is similar enough to what was going on in Corinth, so that this passage uh matters. When I read Matthew, I think 22, and Jesus is talking to the Sadducees, and they show up and they're like, hey, this lady was married to that guy, and then married to that guy, and then married to that guy, and then, ha ha, whose wife is she going to be in heaven? And they think they've stumped Jesus. Jesus quotes Exodus three and says, You're in error, you don't know how scripture works, you don't understand what God is saying, present tense, to you, not to the original audience. Then he quotes Exodus three, I'm the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, and Jesus concludes, he's not the God of the dead, he's the God of the living. I can't imagine anybody in the original context ever thought that was a resurrection passage. If you go back and read Exodus now, it's just Moses asking, Hey, when I introduce myself, or when I introduce you, who do I say that you are? But Jesus realizes that passage is actually was written with author capital A, with those Sadducees in mind. And that that text is speaking to them. And again, maybe this was some of the, I mentioned going to Tony Evans' church when I was in Dallas. Maybe this is some of the blessings of the black church, is to realize that there is this immediacy that God is speaking directly through his word into our lives. And so I think for our listeners, what I've been trying to do over 20 years is to help them to realize God is speaking. Like we're not sort of like coming up with some general principle. It's not a physics classroom where I'm like, well, let me teach you how F equals M A and then go into the lab and try to figure out how this works. No, God is speaking. And when He speaks, you know, we get transformed. Uh so yeah, for me, the idea that they are actually listening to God, uh, I think that's uh I think that is transformative. And so that's kind of if that's your question, that's kind of how we've been trying to go about it.

Joel Lawrence: 40:05

That's absolutely the question, and I think really insightful. Let me ask one quick follow-up um to that, uh, which is like how can you give us some examples of how are you teaching your people to be attentive to God? Is it do you say it from up front a lot? How does that work in like discipleship ministries or in the church? I just would be curious to hear like shepherding your church to to understand this and that the immediacy of the word of God is it's he's here and he's speaking. How do you give us some examples of how you do this as a shepherd?

Jim Samra: 40:46

So the most uh important thing is if you're not praying and actually hearing what God once said, you won't be able to do this because you'll say it and then everyone will go, Well, I didn't hear God speak. So if you're doing this, people will begin to realize. So let me give you an example. I early on in my ministry, people would come up to me and be like, Man, I loved it when you said this. I have a manuscript and I have an audio recording. If you go back and look at either one of those, those words were not in either of them. And so I used to correct people in my very sort of academic, like, well, let's make sure we have everything accurate. And at some point the Holy Spirit was like, Hello, would you stop doing that? He's like, I just keep talking after you're done. So now I just want to affirm to people, man, if you heard that, I'm not sure I said those words, but it just means the Holy Spirit continued to speak to you. You should pay really close attention to that. So practically, those are some of the things. But if you're not actually hearing what God wants said, you know, the Isaiah, I think it's 55, this is an important passage, like my word will not return void, but will accomplish the purpose for which I sent it. We can get into a discussion about how many meanings are there for the text, but I would at least say there seems to be an infinite number of purposes for which God can send a text into a situation. I think John Golden Gay at one point wrote about this the difference between meaning and significance, the idea that a text can have a different significance that might not be part of its hermeneutical meaning. I see that happen all the time where the Lord uses a text to say something that you're like, I'm not sure the original context. So, for example, I was speaking to somebody this week, and the Lord gave me 1 Kings 3 for that person. And I was like, I don't think you're Moab, and I don't think you're Jehoshaphat or any of the people involved in that. But I do think there's something in this passage that the Lord is wanting to say to you about being in a desert and asking God for water and having pools of water show up. And so that's where trying to train people and help people. So on Sunday mornings, like I said, we're going through Ecclesiastes. We spend a lot more time talking about this is what the Holy Spirit says through Solomon than just, hey, here's Solomon's thoughts on life. So trying to do those things, I also will at least admit, uh, I wrote a book called God Told Me. Using this black and white language has has caused people problems and gotten me into trouble. But the upside is, is it does create an expectation that God is speaking. And for me, that's how faith works. All I want to do is give God an opening and then let Him walk through it. And so that's what we are trying to do. That's what all the prayer is for, uh, is to get the opening and then be like, Lord, here it is. If you want to speak, you will affirm what I'm telling him. But if you don't speak, then I'm just I'm wasting my time.

Joel Lawrence: 43:51

Jim, it's been just super encouraging to hear you speaking about these things. Uh, we hope we don't get you in in too much more trouble through the podcast. It's it's holy trouble. It's good trouble. Yes. Um as we as we draw the the conversation to a close, um would just love to hear you reflect on things God's teaching you, maybe just more generally as a as a pastor. What are what are you hearing from him these days? We're living in tumultuous times. There's lots going on in the world around us. How's God shaping you as a shepherd? How's God, what's God teaching you as a pastor?

Jim Samra: 44:33

I read a book not that long ago called The Body Keeps the Score. It's kind of a somewhat famous book about trauma and processing trauma and those sorts of things. And while I was reading it, I felt like the Lord, as I was kind of praying and thinking through it, felt like the Lord was like, hey, don't forget the human body was formed out of the dust of the ground. Like there's a connection between the earth and human bodies. And so it kind of started me on this path with the Lord of like, well, if the body keeps the score, does the land keep the score? And you get into like Abel's blood crying out from the ground and the and the promised land being contaminated and vomiting out the Israelites. So I think as a pastor, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about am I pastoring on contaminated land? And to what extent being in America and to what extent being in my context? So the pastor who founded my church made some racially insensitive, bad, wrong comments. We had to come to grips with that to say, I think we've been living in some contaminated land. How am I as a pastor? What's my job in helping clean up the land, acknowledging those things? It's kind of like the story in 2 Samuel 21, where there's a famine in the land for three years, and David finally, by year three, is like, okay, God, what's going on? And God says to David, Oh, yeah, it's because of sins Saul committed like 60 years ago. And David's like, what? He's like, yeah, he tried to kill all the Gibeonites. Happens to be a racial genocide. And so David has to work to clean up the land. So I don't think David is guilty of those sins, but he has the opportunity to step in and clean up the land. So when I look at America today, I just think, man, we are contaminating the land and we live on contaminated land. I can't fix all of those problems. But how can we as a church bring healing to our land? I just always ignored the fact that in 2 Chronicles 7, 14, we quote this all the time. If my people who are called by my name, it's got two things. I will forgive their sins and heal their land. How do we experience healing in the land? So that would be what I would say. And so, like just for us personally, I feel like the Lord has revealed that we as a church have two original sins that are contaminating our land. One is an over-reliance on human wisdom, and one is people pleasing. And so with race and racism came out of those things, they were not the root cause. And so, yeah, as a pastor, just trying to think through when I think about watch your life and doctrine closely, I also think if we're going to be a pillar, the church is going to be a pillar and a conduit from heaven to earth, then we're going to have to clean up some contaminating things, some traumatizing things, so that when a, for example, a person of color, or when somebody who is an over-reliance on human wisdom, or when somebody who is by nature a people pleaser walks into our church, they're not triggered in such a way that they're unable to hear from the Lord because they're living on poisoned land. So that's really what I've been thinking through as a pastor and kind of studying through in the scriptures and trying to figure out how that all happened. And not just how do I watch my life, but how do we as a church watch our lives and clean up stuff from the past in such a way that anybody who comes into this place is walking on holy ground and God can come and dwell among us.

Joel Lawrence: 48:07

Well, I don't know about you, Matt, but that kind of feels like we need to have Jim back on season two of this series. And the this, I mean, that concept of cleaning up, I mean Genesis three, the land is cursed, right? So that that's and pastorally, yeah, that's fascinating. I'd love to we're gonna have to have you back to have that conversation a little bit more because that's a that's a rich theme to open up right at the end. So but uh Jim, thanks so much again for your sharing your heart, your transparency, um, your sharing your life with us, uh, with our our our hearers, and uh confident that this will be encouraging to the people who hear. So we're we're grateful for you, brother. I appreciate it. Thank you, Matt. It's been great to be with you guys. Thank you, Jim. God bless.

Zach Wagner: 48:57

Thanks for listening to today's episode of the CPT Podcast, a theology podcast for the church. If you enjoyed this episode, would you consider subscribing if you haven't already? You can also help us out by leaving a rating and especially a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. We love hearing from listeners in this way, and it helps others find out about the show. The Pastor Theologians Podcast is a production of the Center for Pastor Theologians. You can learn more about the CPT at our website, Pastor Theologians.com. You can also find us on Facebook, YouTube, and follow us on Twitter. This show is produced by Seth Porch and Sophia Luke. The show is recorded and edited in partnership with Glowfire Creative, and editing is done by Seth Frequore. Hosting duties are shared by Joel Lawrence, Ray Paul, and me, Zach Wagner. Thanks for listening.