Developing the Sermon Outline

Developing the sermon outline is a major milestone in transforming your text into a meaningful application for the congregation. 

It means that you have heard from the Lord. It means that you taken time to understand the context.

It means that you have done the historical-grammatical-literary study of the passage. Now, deep meditation is your focus as the Lord makes clear what He intends for this time of your preaching.

 Developing the sermon outline is where the preacher starts to pull God’s message together. Your study will reveal certain information you may not have been fully cognizant of but by now the Holy Spirit has fully engaged your spirit.

 The outline should tell us what we are going to preach about, in other words, first, it should make clear the Subject (not in the narrow sense) and secondly, the outline should tell us what we are going to say about the subject , Robinson calls this the complement.

                                                                 (Haddon Robinson in Biblical Preaching).

 

The preacher may use different paradigms for these aspects of his sermon development such as a more logical, categorical symbolism Subject/Predicate.

The point here is that the sermon ought to follow and mimic the thinking patterns of the human mind.

 

Preachers set the tone for their sermon by developing an Introduction to the message and a Conclusion which are usually created after the body of the message has been constructed.

 

To help determine where and how, even what kind of confirmation of the points we need to aide in putting meat on the bones, Illustrations are used and should be placed in your outline.

 

So Lets take a look at some Sermon Outlines:

 

Point Sermon

 

 Title:Faith in the Wilderness

 

Lesson:Hebrews 3:1-14

 

Text:Hebrews 14

 

Purpose:        

To motivate and help Christians to maintain their faith in times of trouble, danger and disappointment believing that God works through His mercy and mercy in every problem we face.

Introduction:       

Who are we and why are we here that we should come together in this place?  All have come from different walks of life but we all have been called-out. We are headed for the promise land but right now we find ourselves on a journey through the wildness.      

 

Text:                   

The story of the provocation in the wilderness

 

Setting:               

The wilderness of Sin—After God delivered the children of Israel from Egypt but before they reached the Mount Sinai they traveled the desert of Sin.

 

Cast:               

     Moses, Aaron and the children of Israel

 

Ideas flowing the text:

 

I.                   Sensitivity to God’s blessings upon us

          A.   Illustration—story of Teenager being insensitivity to

               his Father

          B.    Insensitivity leads to a failure to remember our

               blessings

          C.   Insensitivity increases the selfish nature

 

II.                Having a thankful attitude

          A.   God grants us victory of the obstacles & problems in

               the wilderness    

 

III.             Because we are partakers of Christ, We can meet every

          situation in the wilderness with faith

 

 

Celebration

 

I believe we will see the promise land and enter into His rest if we can but meet every situation with faith, believe that God is concerned about us. And we have an apostle and high priest of our faith, Jesus Christ, who called us out of the wilderness of our own lives….

 

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