I'd Rather Have Jesus

Lots of preachers have theories about preaching. Some require an order – first you tell people what you are about to declare, some say you have to finish with “actions steps,” while others think you must conclude with an invitation.

What did Gardner Taylor, the subject of Jared Alcántara’s book, Learning from a Legend, establish as a pattern in his preaching?

Alcántara draws out four dimensions of Gardner Taylor’s belief that sermons need to be redemptive.

After Concord Baptist Church burnt to the ground in 1952 Taylor found himself alone in the new sanctuary before it was opened. He realized how tempting it is to preach to such a large audience. He then instructed the builders to put an inscription on the floor behind the pulpit that said, “We would see Jesus.” I don’t remember now where I have seen such, but I have seen something similar: a plaque on the pulpit only visible to the one preaching.

Question for you preachers: What do you do to keep your preaching focused on Jesus and redemptive?

So, his first theme: beware of pushing Jesus out.

The words of Mary Magdalene come to mind in this chapter: Where have they taken my Lord?

Taylor didn’t want his sermons known for erudition, intellectualism or oratory but for putting before his audiences the Lord Jesus in all his glory. Preaching tempts all preachers to vanity and power and hubris. All of them. All the time. The serious temptation then to shove Jesus aside for our own glory.

Second redemptive theme: the power of the cross.

In a famous sermon 10,000 American Baptist Convention delegates, preaching on Revelation 7:9, Taylor preached the power of the cross to forgive sins, to form unity out of our diversities, and to empower us to form justice out of injustices. Civil rights matter; education matters; litigation matters – but not as much as the power of the cross. These are not either-or’s but first-seconds.

Third: preaching with a redemptive focus.

Jesus is the throbbing center of the Bible; he’s not the subject of the sermon but the center of the sermon. (Alcántara speaks of Brian Blount learning from Taylor, and some of you will know I’m a big fan of Blount’s work.)

He turns too to Thomas Long who said all sermons must be news, good news, and without good news a sermon is bad news. Taylor said sermons are not to be “Ben Franklin almanac’s maxims.”

No news is bad news.

Many will counter with some Yes … but’s. Which is the point: get those sermons into a good news shape.

Fourth: preaching about the preciousness of Jesus.

Alcántara tells an amazing story about George Beverly Shea who was wandering from his faith when his mother cornered him into getting home earlier from work and playing the piano for family hymn sings every evening. She told him to play “I’d Rather Have Jesus…” and that became Shea’s famous song.

Gardner Taylor said the same thing at the end of his life.

I’ve known people of great wealth, but I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold; I’d rather have Jesus than riches untold. I have heard great auditoriums echo with acclaim from one end of the earth to the other. You name it – New York, Cleveland, Chicago, London, Tokyo, Miami- but I’d rather have Jesus than people’s applause.

I have known great people -. Malcolm and Martin. Once preaching in Old First Church here in Princeton about twenty-five years ago, I spent a morning with Albert Einstein. But I’d rather hear the gospel of Jesus Christ than all of the wisdom of scientific genius. No matter how famous or obscure the preacher, no matter whether highly educated or prayerfully self-taught, no matter whether male or female, I’d rather hear from him or her the riches of the pure and simple gospel than all of the astonishing insights of science. I’d rather have Jesus; I’d rather have Jesus than anything this world affords. I’d rather have Jesus.

Amen?