My friend and colleague Jim Lenderman died Sunday, May 16, 2021. It was an honor and a privilege to know him, to follow him, and to serve along side him. Among the many gifts he gave me was allowing me to preach his funeral on May 21, 2021 and what follows is the text of that sermon.

In the Spring of 1994, the Arkansas School for Mathematics and Sciences made its students “shadow” a professional in the field they were interested in as a career. I went with several others to shadow some doctors at UAMS because that’s what I’d wanted to do since I was in elementary school. About a month after that, Maundy Thursday of 1994, Jim Lenderman was preaching that service and I had one of the weirdest experiences of my life. As Jim was preaching, I looked up and for a moment saw myself in that pulpit. As it happens God used that moment to lay the groundwork for calling me into ministry at Sr. High Assembly a couple of months after that. The following Spring, in 1995, when shadowing day came around, I spent the day shadowing Jim Lenderman. We spent some time in his office talking about pastoral duties. He printed off some of his notes from an inductive Bible class he had taken at Asbury Theological Seminary and gave them to me—I still remember the acronym CIE, “context is everything” at the top of the page, something he learned from the late David Thompson. I wore a suit that day, I assume because that’s how his senior pastor, David Wilson, expected him to dress as a pastor. We went to the new St. Joseph’s hospital in Hot Springs and visited and prayed with the late John Hays, a pastor in the then Little Rock conference who was dying of cancer. Then we went to Applebees to lunch. When Jim dropped me off at my dorm that day, I was as assured of my calling as the day God dropped it on me. I saw a man doing what I wanted to do. I watched a man that I wanted to be.

I’ve since realized that I have been shadowing Jim ever since he showed up at my school on move in day 28 years ago.

I’ve known Jim since I was sixteen years old. I want you to know that the man Central UMC has gotten to know over the last four years was the exact same person I met in 1993, just a little older and wiser. He was, even then, one of the most obedient and earnest people of faith I’ve ever met. And he was still as in love with his wife here as he was then. He was a brand new father. He was so proud of Hayden and loved him so much and I know that when Jordan came along later he felt the same. That never changed, either. Lots of things never changed about Jim. He was driven. He was a hard worker. He loved Jesus. He adored Beth. He probably never thought so, but he was a person a lot of people looked up to and admired. After he died, when grief sent my mind in a million different directions, I wanted someone from our high school youth group to know and was able to find a phone number of someone I haven’t spoken to in 26 years. Scott recalled how hard Jim worked with not a lot of resources to get us to know and love Christ. He testified that his own son is walking with the Lord with his whole heart and that is a part of Jim’s legacy of faith. Jim’s life and faithfulness left a mark on people.

As I thought about what I wanted to say or preach about to honor Jim, I went to 1 Corinthians 2 instead because it reflects the heart and desire of Jim Lenderman as he followed Christ. To start with, Paul tells the church at Corinth about the manner in which he came to them: not with lofty speech or clever arguments, but with the message of Christ crucified. He says that’s all he wanted to know among them. This is, from a worldly standpoint, an utterly absurd thing to say to a bunch of Gentiles when you show up in the middle of sophisticated and hedonistic Corinth. “May I tell you about a man who was crucified? But is now alive?” People listened because the two do not go together. How could they? Paul acknowledges that he came in weakness and fear and much trembling because what he was saying was not plausible according to the wisdom of the world but in a demonstration of the Spirit so that their faith might not rest in the wisdom of human beings, but in the power of God.

Paul came in weak. He came in foolishly. It was the cross of Christ to which he pointed which was an absurdity to the world around him, but he wasn’t looking for tips and tricks to get the culture to be open to the Gospel, he wanted the Spirit to demonstrate the truth—that people would hear the folly of the cross and experience the Spirit awakening them and delivering them to new life in the new birth. It’s a blessing to know people who read things like this and make it their life’s mission. Jim is one of those people. His life was shaped by the cross, by the giving of self for the benefit of others. You’ve heard of his sacrificial generosity from Dawn already. One person testified on Facebook this week that Jim, “gave his shoes to one of the men we worked alongside in Jamaica. He walked barefoot all the way back to the bus.” He saw a healing take place in Africa as he washed the feet of a man with diseased feet. When Jim signed his letters, “towels and basin,” it was a reflection of Christ’s service to the disciples. It wasn’t merely words on a page, it was a powerful call to live as Christ. That which the world sees as foolishness made sense to him by the power of the Spirit and he wanted that for all people. Not many of you may know, but Jim used to come in early and sit out by the chapel and as he watched the traffic go by, he prayed. He prayed for an awakening for Rogers that would ripple out into the whole world. I know some might look and think, didn’t he have work to do? He did! He was doing it by acknowledging that he was weak and needed God to answer him if he was going to lead God’s church. He carried a deep desire for us and our city to know the power of God by a gracious demonstration of the Holy Spirit. That was at the heart of his life and ministry in this world, that you and me would know the depths of God’s love and power and that it would upend life in all the right ways for God’s kingdom.

Paul keeps up this theme, that the wisdom of the wise of the age is doomed to pass away, but that which the church and her apostles are delivering to the world is an impartation of God’s wisdom, a wisdom that is so not in line with the way the world currently works, but is, instead, something that we haven’t seen or heard or even imagined. God is preparing something for those who love him and he is revealing them to us through the Holy Spirit. And here’s the amazing thing: we can’t understand God or his thoughts. But the Holy Spirit can. And Paul tells us that we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And what do we imagine that is? What is freely given us by God? That which God has prepared for those who love him, that are revealed to us through the Spirit.

Himself. That’s what he freely and lovingly gives us. It’s him. The greatest treasure and source of joy and pleasure we could ever hope to know: Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. Jesus is our only hope for any kind of meaningful joy and peace in this life. He is the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father except through him. That right there is what Paul was talking about when he came not with plausible words of wisdom, but in a demonstration of the Spirit and of power. The reason we don’t get to the Father except through Jesus is because as the only resurrected one he knows the way. Jesus, crucified and risen is the only way. And he gives himself freely to us! Can I tell you that knowing and following Jesus Christ crucified and risen was Jim’s desire? You could see it in his life and in his words, but also as he approached his last moments. Do you know what he wanted to talk about? Do you know what occupied his mind? It was the things freely given us by God! He was trying to wrap his heart and mind around the love within and between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That’s what he wanted! To be filled with that love since Jesus prayed in John 17:26 that the love with which the Father loves the Son would be in us. Jim had a taste of that and wanted more even as he prepared for the unreal, indescribable experience of existing in God’s presence. A few weeks ago, when he gave me back a book I loaned him called “Our People Die Well: Glorious Accounts of Early Methodists at Death’s Door” I opened it and found a scrap of paper upon which he wrote a quote from a condemned prisoner named John Lancaster that read, “if a foretaste be so sweet, what must the full enjoyment be?” My friend not only enjoyed the foretaste, but he now has the full enjoyment.

Through the Spirit’s revealing work in us, giving Jesus freely to us in our spirits, he gives us the mind of Christ. If we understand anything it’s because of the Holy Spirit and he wants to give us Christ’s mind, his way of seeing things, his way of loving, his way of living. This allows us to put the main thing as the main thing in life. That which “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined,” but that which “God has prepared for those who love him.” That becomes front and center for you when Jesus becomes everything to you. Precious Jesus.

In the 17th century, a German lawyer named Johann Franck wrote a hymn called Jesus, Priceless Treasure. The last stanza reads:

Banish thoughts of sadness,
for the Lord of gladness,
Jesus, enters in;
though the clouds may gather,
those who love the Savior
still have peace within.
Though I bear much sorrow here,
still in you lies purest pleasure,
Jesus, priceless treasure!

Having the mind of Christ shifts our focus onto the main thing, Jesus, so that when the clouds of life gather, we still have peace. That even when we bear much sorrow, Jesus is still the source of purest pleasure. Paul’s ministry of proclaiming Jesus so that the so-called wisdom of the world was overcome by the demonstration of the Spirit’s power was so that we may ultimately know Jesus as the most important anything of life.

That’s not only truth. That’s not only what Paul desired for us. It’s the main thing of life, and it’s what I’ve learned from Jim for almost thirty years. I remember my senior year of high school, Jim put me on the youth leadership council and we had weekly meetings. Jim told us one night about a death and dying class he took in seminary. One of the assignments was to write your own obituary. I wish we’d been able to find it, partly to see how well my memory stands up, but in general terms I remember it for two things. One, it expressed his desire to be a loving husband and father. Two, it expressed a desire to treasure Jesus above all else. The point of the assignment was to think about this day, about what you’d want people to think and say about you, so that you would start living in such a way that they would actually say those things at your death. Jim, like the Apostle Paul before him, wanted to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified and risen. Mission accomplished.

Years ago I read a book on preaching by a well known Methodist. I was intrigued by the chapter on funeral sermons because one of the questions he would ask families was, “What do you think your loved one would say to you right now if he could?” Paul says “what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him,” that has become sight and reality. I think Jim would tell us, “this is better than I could have ever imagined and I’m so glad I gave my life completely for this!” I think he would say that an audacious vision for awakening in Benton County or for raising money to give away 22,000 Bibles in Africa or investing in evangelism and church planting in India was worth pursing. Jim not only had the mind of Christ, but the heart of Christ for you, for me, and for the whole world. He clung to Romans 8:18 and that glory has now been revealed to him and while the sufferings of this present time aren’t worth comparing to it, I have no doubt that Jim has already said to himself that following Jesus was totally worth it as he sees his Savior face to face. It was the testimony of the Spirit, alive in him, that led him into a life of love and obedience. His life serves as a testimony to the power of God in the resurrection that will be ours as well if we, like Jim, follow Jesus with the Spirit’s help to the Father. I’d love for you to consider Jim’s legacy of following obediently and earnestly after Jesus. I’m proud and humbled to be a part of the fruit of that faith and I want to know Jesus like he did. Consider this an invitation to follow Jim as he followed Christ. You won’t be disappointed. He is precious. He is worthy.