Must a preacher’s homiletical outline match his exegetical outline?

Not necessarily. An expositional sermon should explain and apply the main point of a passage of Scripture. If a preacher is able to derive his homiletical outline directly from his exegetical outline, so much the better. This often allows the congregation to better see the structure of a passage.

But walking straight through a passage may not be the most rhetorically effective way of pressing a text into the hearts of one’s hearers. Sometimes a preacher might decide he can more faithfully and powerfully preach the point of a passage by altering the homiletical outline. For instance, he might preach the first point in a paragraph last because it’s the most striking point.