My Last Sermon: What if I knew?

I don’t think most people think about the end of their lives. Not really. Not past a vague sense that someday, somehow, it will. I probably think about it more than most. It comes with being a pastor, T1D, etc. So when I watched an interview with Chuck Swindoll, and he was asked what he’d want his last sermon to be, it hit differently than it probably would for most people watching. Here was a man near the end of a long, faithful ministry of preaching, teaching, and other things, being asked what he would want his last sermon to be if he got to choose. To his credit, he had a beautiful answer tied to his ministry and calling.

However, it got me thinking about my own ministry. None of us knows how much time we have left.  For a pastor, your last (previous) sermon could easily be your last (final) sermon.  And so there is an aspect of being faithful and doing your best every week.  

But what if you could know?  What if you could plan and prepare? I don’t know who a writing like this is for.  Honestly, it could just be for me.  However, if you are reading this, maybe it will share a little more about who I am.  But I hope it helps you, in a very positive way, think about what the ministry of your life would say.  

When I think through this, four passages come to mind instantly…not because I love them more than the rest of Scripture. To be transparent, I could be excited about God’s Word and just let my Bible fall open to some page.  But I chose these verses because they’re mine. They’ve attached themselves to me somewhere along the way, and I can’t shake them even if I tried. 

Maybe that’s the honest way to say it: this is my hope distilled down to the things I’d say if I only got one more chance to say them as a pastor/preacher.

1. The First One – Romans 8:31-32

“31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”  

The first sermon I ever preached was on Labor Day weekend. I was fourteen, and I invited everyone I knew. Amazingly, more of them showed up than I expected in our little country church. I preached from Romans 8:31-32. However, to my knowledge and as of this writing, I’ve never gone back to it as a stand-alone sermon. As a note, that’s incredible for me to think through and to say (write) out loud. I’ve referenced it multiple times, included it in writings and other things. But not like I did the first time I tried to preach. 

Out of the four passages that came to mind, this one was first.  I wonder what I’d actually say if I got the chance. Because by the end of a ministry, I’ve made Paul’s argument a hundred different ways. I’ve explained the theology, defended the logic, walked people through why the case holds. 

But if I knew it was the last time, I don’t think I’d want to argue it anymore. I’d want to state it. Emphatically. With everything I had left. That God is for us. That nothing stands a chance against that. I would declare it, not as a legal case to be won, but as a promise to be lived in.

As a side note: I got emotional writing this one. Again, maybe I am saving it, or maybe I am scared to go back because of what it means to me.

2. The Verse that Haunts – 1 Corinthians 10:31 

“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

This is the verse that haunts me, and I mean that with genuine fondness now, though it didn’t start that way. For years, this verse just kept showing up uninvited, and I’d think, there it is again. If I recall correctly, it started as a theme verse for something else entirely, a teen trip or a VBS theme, one of those verses picked for a season and meant to fade when the season ended. 

It didn’t fade. 

The verse started showing up in sermons when I hadn’t planned. It showed up in teaching points I hadn’t included the verse in, and yet there it was, fitting anyway. I went through years of this. Eventually I stopped resisting it and just accepted it: the podcast, more than one ministry initiative, different pieces of church merchandise, all trace back to 1 Corinthians 10:31. 

This verse isn’t about living up to something. It’s a verse about recognizing something. We get drawn to the big moments, the mountaintop, the valley, the milestones worth marking. But this verse asks a smaller, harder question: whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do you do it all to the glory of God? Even the small things. Even the unremarkable Tuesday. If this were really the last sermon, that’s the question underneath it: it is not “did I do something great,” but “did it bring glory to God?”

3. The Prophecy with history – Amos 4:1-2 

“Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’ 2 The Lord God has sworn by his holiness that, behold, the days are coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks.”

For years, I told people these were my favorite verses. Especially when people in my circles seemed to be obsessed with the question. The trend has died off, but to this day I still have a ribbon in my preaching Bible turned to this text.

Why? Amos is the book that convinced me the Old Testament belongs on Sunday morning, not tucked into a Sunday night or Wednesday service like a footnote. I enjoy putting the Old Testament on full display. And most people who teach Amos never get past chapter one or two. 

My favorite unsung aspect is that Amos comes onto the stage, delivers the prophecy, and walks off. No lengthy introduction. No hedging. Just: here’s what God says is coming. There’s something almost peaceful about that, to me, as a pastor. He didn’t mince words: “cows of Bashan,” dragged away with hooks. These words aren’t flowery; they’re easy to decode. It was authority. This event is going to happen. And it did. 

History confirms it: the very method Amos named is the method that was later used to take the people into captivity. A true “here’s your sign” moment to believe the prophet of God. 

That’s where I find peace preaching God’s word. I find peace not in how the sermon ends, but in knowing that when God says a thing, it holds. If this were my last sermon, I think that’s what I’d want to leave people with certainty. What God says, happens. Every time. Including the promises, not just the judgments.

4. The Last Promise – 2 Corinthians 5:8

Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 

Finally, the verse I use at almost every Christian funeral.  If I had to go right now (not someday, not eventually, but right now), this is the promise that I’d want my family, and everyone else listening, to leave with. Paul writes it plainly in 2 Corinthians 5:8: to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. I would want to say, with everything I had left, that while I may be absent (or away) from this body, I would be present with God. Not gone. Present. 

And I think that’s the piece people miss when they think about a pastor’s last sermon. It isn’t a goodbye. I don’t believe in goodbyes, not really, not for Christians. It’s closer to “I’ll see you soon.” I want the people I love, and the people who’ve loved me back, to hear it that way. Not as an ending, but as a promise being kept.

Conclusion

In the end, the truth is this: any Sunday could be the last (final) one, whether I know it or not. My last sermon and my final sermon could easily be the same, and that’s exactly why I have to show up and do my best every week, regardless of which one it turns out to be. 

Writing this article and putting it out to the world gave me a chance to ask a question I don’t usually get to ask: what if I knew it was my last sermon? And if I did, I believe these four scriptures are what I’d reach for at least initially.

There’s a gentleman at Lighthouse I’ve heard say the same thing more than once, and at almost every funeral we’ve sat through together. He would say if you asked his wife, or children, what his favorite verse was, his answer has always been the same: “All of it.” To love God’s word so much that there isn’t a favorite, because the answer is everything. Love all of it. Preach all of it. And when it comes to the end, be faithful to All Of It.

I think that’s my hope too.