Video Transcript: Outline and Explanation - Learning how to put a message/sermon together

Welcome back. Welcome back to this third session on this short course on so  you've been asked to speak somewhere. You know, we've been looking at the  different kinds of messages. And again, my predisposition here is to talk about  the fact you've been asked to preach somewhere, you've been asked to give a  devotional, you've been asked to give a message. And so how do you get that  

message from the Bible? How do you get those messages that come from  connections and put them into the Bible kind of setting? Well, now we're going to move to how do you start putting this message together? And the place to begin  with that, of course, is with the introduction. Now, introductions are important,  more important than most people give them credit. Many, many people, when  they start preaching, I found, will simply jump into their subject. And this is a little bit of a dangerous time, because studies have shown that if people don't  connect with your message within the first two minutes of you talking, they'll start tuning out. Their minds will go elsewhere. And we who speak in front of people  these days face a huge challenge, because with the media on television in  particular, wherever you might be, the images change every eight to 12  seconds, and so there's this huge change going on. So if they're not hooked by  what you say in your introduction, they'll start tuning out. So the purpose of an  introduction is first to hook people, to get them to bite on to to grab onto what  you're saying. My grandkids gave me a little computer, 3DS, Nintendo 3DS, to  play a computer game on. And in one part of that game, video game, there's a  part where you have to fish. And I was really quite surprised I go, I've done  some fishing. I'm not a big fisherman. You may know more about that than I but  one of the things I had to do was cast this little figure, cast this line into this pool. And that wasn't enough. You had to play with it. You had to tease the fish a little  bit before they would bite on and then you could haul them ashore. And you  could continue by catching some more, and then you got rewards for the  amount you catch. Well, the introduction, you got to look at that way. It's  throwing your lure in, and you're playing with it so that people get hooked. And  they say, I want to hear more. So we want to be hooked. So introduce.  Introductions do several things. They make us want more information. In other  words, they're going to, they're they're going to say, I want to find out more.  When you read some of the great novels in history, at least in English literature,  that's my background, of course. Is English literature, they start things like, it  was the best of times it was the worst of times. Right away you say, Well, what  kind of time was it? Describe that more, tell me more. And then the writer goes  on and you're hooked in the first page. Novels do that. Great speakers do that  too. They hook you saying, I want to know more. Sometimes it's the introduction  of a character, and I'm reading a novel right now, or the first page, you know,  we're given a glimpse of action that says, Okay, who is this guy anyway? And so you read more. One of the things it does is a good introduction makes people  want more. It introduces the theme of your message in some way, shape or 

form, and it will set a tone. It will say the type of speaker you are, and it will gain  credibility for us. Now, if you're a guest preacher, and that's where I spend most  of my time these days, you have to spend a little bit of time on that gain  credibility for us. You know, not bragging on yourself, but people have to believe  you know what you're talking about, that you thought this through, you studied it, that you are, are serious. And so, you know, I will always give a brief introduction of myself, just that I've been preaching for a long time. And you know, preaching  is one of the passions that God has given me. And you know, when I was out of  ministry for a while, I felt called back into it, just by preaching and saying God,  saying to me, this is what I've called you to do. So I'm glad to be here today to  share with you. So it's a way to hook people, but it's also a way to gain credibility for yourself. So what kind of introductions work well to accomplish these four  purposes, make us want more information, introduce the theme, set a tone, gain credibility for us, one of the best ways what kind of introductions work well is a  story. Now. When you read through the scriptures and you read the messages of Jesus, you'll find he almost always uses a story as an introduction to a deeper  truth. They were often parables, but they're stories that people back then could  relate to grab on to and say, Okay, what does this mean? How does how does  this relate to my life? And think about the parable of the sower, where the farmer goes out to first sow various kinds of seed. You know that this is something they  saw all the time. In fact, some scholars suggest that Jesus was watching  somebody, a farmer, sowing seed as he began this message. And so that it was  that kind of reality that he worked with, that people saw what was going on, saw  what he was talking about. And so that's how he used story. And now you can  use stories in a variety of ways. Let me just share one with you. This is John  Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church back in the 18th century, John  Wesley was an incredibly dedicated person. He was dedicated to personal  holiness. In fact, when he was in college, he and his brother, Charles and some  other young men started what they called the holiness club, and their goal was  hold each other accountable. They met every day and and they held each other  accountable for a holy life. And that holy life was involved by dedicating yourself  to the service of God for your entire life. And so the people in the holiness club  made a pledge, since the Apostle Paul said, you know, I wished everybody was  single so that they could wholeheartedly devote themselves to the work of God.  I wish that everybody was single. They made a pledge to be single, single. Now  John Wesley began to question that. He began to question it when he went as a  missionary to the American colony at that time of Georgia, went as a missionary  there to Indians. And while there, he met a young woman that just captivated  him. Her name was Sophia Hopkey, and he began rethinking his dedication to  singleness, because he fell in love with Sophia Hopkey Now, unfortunately she  was story goes, engaged to another person. And so he was struggling, and  couldn't find himself because he had dedicated himself. He had these other 

people, these other members of the holiness club, are holding him accountable  for his singleness. And he couldn't feel like he could break that and so he  struggled with that, struggle that and Sophia Hopkey finally married the other  person. And so what's the will of God for? For John Wesley, in regard to  marriage, he ended up going back to England as a very crushed person in very  many ways. And it's fascinating story came back to England and picked up the  work in England of preaching in a variety of places. Preaching, you know, the  Bible, preaching a seriousness about receiving Jesus Christ into your life and  having him involved your whole life. And he began rethinking about the fact that, you know, he noticed that some people in the movement found great strength in  being married, marriage. And he began to rethink his objections to marriage. He  had seven of them, in fact, one time in his in his journal, he which are  voluminous, by the way, and very interesting reading. He wrote in his journal, but he'd been re looking at his seven objections to marriage, and and he's and he's  rethinking them, and he's thinking that now maybe God is calling him to get  married, to take a wife. And so he's praying about this, thinking about it, and he  writes, and I think that maybe Grace Murray is the person that I might be called  to marry. And so Grace Murray was somebody who had been working alongside him in a variety of settings within this movement that was Methodism in the, in  England at that time, and and he's deciding to ask her to marry him. Well, he  tells his brother Charles this, that he's going to ask Grace Murray to marry him.  And Charles is so upset by this that he rushes out the door, jumps on his horse,  according to the story, and rides pell mell over to Grace Murray's house. Gets off his horse, rushes in, doesn't even bother knocking, rushes in the door, confronts Grace Murray and says, Grace, Murray, you're breaking my heart. And he falls  over in a faint Grace Murray was so traumatized by this that she refused to even think about marrying John, and she ended up marrying another man. Well now  Wesley had thought about this whole idea of marriage, and decided that God  was calling him to get married. And so he married a young woman named Mary  Vazeille, V, A, Z, E, I, L, L, E and and sometimes she's referred to as Molly in  history. Got married to her, and he had an awful marriage, actually. Ended up  leaving her entirely after about 10 years, but they ended up separating many  times in there. They had a miserable marriage. I used that story to introduce  how do you know God's will? How do you know God's will, if a holy person like  John Wesley had trouble getting it right, how do you know God's will? And so we looked at various scripture passage. It was a topical message. But anyway, I  suspect you were engaged in that story. People that I was preaching to were  engaged too they want to know what's happening, what's happening, and then  to hit them with the theme, okay, here's a situation where it's tough to determine  God's will. How do you determine God's will? So a story is a great way to  introduce now, just a word about that personal stories can be especially  powerful. This is Rick Warren pastor of Saddleback Community Church in 

Southern California, one of the largest churches in my country, the United  States. Rick Warren is an expert at using personal story, I remember hearing  him speak before he became famous, and he was talking about marriage, and  he talked about the time when he and his wife were having this great tension in  their marriage, and how it was impacting their children, and how they were  looking at the future with great wonder. And, you know, everybody is saying,  how is this going to come out? And then he shared how they came out. More  recently, his son committed suicide, and he took almost a year off from ministry.  When he came back in, his wife said, we're here to share today why we still  believe in a good God. And there, you know, a pin could drop in that thing. Now,  one note about using personal stories is you got to be careful not to be the hero. You know, like you know, people struggle with this aspect of the will of God, but  I've got it all together. If you do that, people are going to start, well, it's good for  you, but doesn't work for me quite that way. So a personal story can be a  wonderful way of introduction. Now, another kind of introduction is an intriguing  question. In other words, you're asking something, you're wondering something,  it's you put it out there. What? What do you think of this? Jesus used this a lot in his messages. Here's seven questions of Jesus. Do you believe that I'm able to  do this? Though, that's an intriguing question, do you believe I'm able to heal  this child? Why are you afraid? You're in a storm right now, and I'm in a boat  with you. Why are you afraid? Oh, you of little faith. What do you think about the  Christ other people, he said, no other people are saying. What do people say?  And they report on that. What do you think? First question to Peter, do you love  me? That's a powerful one, because he says, Do you love me? Do you agape  me? The highest form of love in Scripture. And Peter keeps responding, I philia  you. I love you like a brother. And you know, he's failed Jesus. Why do you call  Me Lord, Lord and not do what I tell you? What do you want me to do for you? I  want to be healed. But it's an intriguing question. What is it you want me to do?  Why do you see the speck that's in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log  in your own eyes? Those are just some intriguing questions. Here are some  others. You know, why does God allow child children to die of starvation? I heard Louis Sneed preach once, and he started out, right? He says, you know, he  says, I haven't lost my faith over but I cannot understand why God allows  children to starve to death in Africa. Can I really forgive and forget? Does God  forgive me, even if I do the same sin over and over? Is God really in control?  Those kind of intriguing questions are powerful to hook people, to give you  credibility, to introduce the theme and to draw people into the messages you've  got to give. We're going to continue this next time. As we continue more ways of  how to introduce a message in such a way that it will grab people's attention and hook them for what you want them to hear from God's Word that day. Thank  you. We'll see you next time