We are recording this episode of Ask Pastor John at the very end of March, and you've been a pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in the Twin Cities now for nearly 33 years, and on Sunday of this week you will preach for the final time as a pastor. And your final sermon falls on Easter.

What's going on in your mind right now as you think ahead to this capstone sermon? Well, the irony of that question, Tony, is that it's Thursday of Holy Week, and I will preach on Easter, and I will start preparing my sermon tomorrow. And I'm laboring like crazy to get ready for the Gospel Coalition right now, and to get ready for my Maundy Thursday talk tonight.

But I have chosen my text from Hebrews 13, 20, and 21, and I do have an idea where I wanted to go. That's why I chose the text, and so I can say a word about what I'm thinking, though how I'm going to say it, what I'm going to say, it's not read in any detail at all.

I chose that text because it's Easter, number one, and it begins, "Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead, our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep." So I chose it first because God brought again from the dead our Shepherd, but I chose it also because I'm a shepherd and I'm leaving my flock.

And I want to say to them, "You have a great Shepherd." Jason Meyer and John Piper are both going to be dead someday, and you cannot put your final hope in any man, but you have a great Shepherd. I just love that phrase, "great Shepherd." He brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep.

He knows there's a lot of sub-shepherds. Us pitty little, sinful, fallible, failing sub-shepherds that cause all kinds of trouble in the Church, as well as bring some blessing to the Church. People have a shepherd, and he has been raised from the dead. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever, wherever they are in the world, whatever their circumstances, whatever people have failed them, whatever disappointments they have in the Church, they have a great Shepherd, and he is alive on Easter and forever, and therefore John Piper can go, Jason Meyer can go, Jesus will never ever go.

That's the gist of what I want to say. Wonderful. And one of your heroes in the faith, Jonathan Edwards, who pastored in Northampton for 24 years, he preached a farewell sermon as well, under much different circumstances, of course. Are you taking any cues from him on how to do this?

I'm not looking to Edwards for clues for how to do this, because our situations are so, so different. But now that you've mentioned it, I might go look at it. Well, I said to Noel, one of the great ironies of this last week is that almost all my attention and all my energy is thinking beyond Easter.

And I wish that weren't true, in a way. I wish I weren't under such pressure to get ready for what's coming in the week after Easter, so that I could sit here and savor more the ending of this 33 years. But in a way, Tony, I said to the Lord, you know, I don't know why you set it up this way, but in a way it feels very gratifying, because it feels like, okay, this is not a big cataclysmic end, "Oh dear, what will I do on the 1st of April when I'm employed by Bethlehem?" It feels like I'm bouncing up and down on a diving board, and I'm ready to do a double-gainer into a new pool, and I just happen to have to preach at Bethlehem one more time in the process.

So it's okay. I think the Lord will give me enough grace tomorrow, when I give myself wholly and emotionally and intellectually to framing that last sermon, that I will be able to savor this moment very deeply. Well, it will be very exciting to see the splash you make in this new chapter of ministry.

It looks to be a very busy one. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast. Please email your questions to us at john@desiringgod.org. At DesiringGod.org you'll find thousands of other free resources from John Piper. I'm your host Tony Reinke, thanks for listening.