The key to writing is rewriting.
I usually type out the first draft of my sermon on Tuesday. After preaching the message to my staff on Thursday, I rewrite it in light of the feedback I received from my team. After reviewing it 1-2x on Saturday I rewrite again. After reviewing it Sunday morning I rewrite again. Then I break each point down into a blog post which makes me rewrite each section yet again. Why do I go through all this? Because each time I rewrite, it gets better.
In Jeremiah 36:2 God told Jeremiah, “Get a scroll, and write down all my messages against Israel, Judah, and the other nations. Begin with the first message back in the days of Josiah, and write down every message, right up to the present time.” Jeremiah obeyed but v.23 records that king Jehoiakim “…threw it into the fire, section by section, until the whole scroll was burned up.” So God told Jeremiah in v.28 “Get another scroll, and write everything again just as you did on the scroll King Jehoiakim burned.” Verse 32 records “So Jeremiah took another scroll and dictated again to his secretary, Baruch. He wrote everything that had been on the scroll King Jehoiakim had burned in the fire. Only this time he added much more!“
When we open our Bibles and read the book of Jeremiah, we are reading his second draft, not his first. God preserved the second draft because it was no doubt better than the first. There were all kinds of good things Jeremiah added the second time around that he didn’t initially think of.
I think the people we preach to on Sunday deserve our second, third or fourth draft – not our first. I believe that if we’ll take the time to rewrite our sermons, they will come out better than the first draft. Why? Because what was true for Jeremiah is true for us today: The key to writing is rewriting.