Hey fellow preachers and teachers. Once again I thought it would be cool to let you in on how I organize my thoughts in preparing a sermon. I usually pray, approach the text, pray more, read again, pray, outline main ideas, form a rough outline, pray, then write out the sermon verbatim.
I want to share with you the middle stage of this process. There has been some progression in how exactly it looks, but the idea is basically the same. Here is the “main idea” stage for one of my first sermons. Notice the difference from the last one…. it gets longer.
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The Demands of the Kingdom: Main Idea
Sermon Title: The Demands of the Kingdom
Main Idea: The Kingdom of God makes one demand of you, a decision. In the Kingdom of God there is room for only one sovereign. Those things that take the place of our God in his sovereignty are our idols. God clears the way from our idols so that we can serve and expand his Kingdom.
General Summary: Life is full of decisions, some better than others. The Kingdom of God involves decisions too, in fact the only demand that the Kingdom of God makes on us, is to make a decision. There is a big misconception that the KOG makes many demands on us: i.e. perfection for God’s love and acceptance, but that isn’t true. Luke 9:57-62 show’s that Jesus demands a decision to wholeheartedly follow him. However there are things in our life that get in the way of following him. Sometimes these things are not bad in and of themselves, other times they are. Whatever these things are, those things that take the place of number one importance before God are our idols. Jesus died to forgive us of our idolatry. He dies to forgive us so that we can experience relationship with him. He frees us from our idols so that we can serve him and expand his kingdom.
CWoznicki Think Out Loud 