Alistair Begg delivered his last sermon at Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio, where he encouraged his congregation that God “is sufficient for every season of life.” Begg had announced his intention to retire last September, although he had named the date of his final sermon to be September 14 of this year. No reason was given for the accelerated date. When he announced his retirement last year, he stated he was doing it a year in advance to “make it clear [it] is not precipitous,” stating, “It’s not driven by anything of which I am personally aware, other than my ambition to pass the baton safely into the hands of my successor.” Due to the change in date, Begg continued a series on Moses and joked about not finishing his last sermon series. “I joked this morning that since [Franz] Schubert has an unfinished symphony, why can’t I have an unfinished series?” he said.

The sermon dealt with God calling Moses through the burning bush. He particularly focused on Moses’s feelings of inadequacy as God called him and his questions about who was sending him. He pointed out that God did not respond by puffing Moses up. “God doesn’t say, ‘Oh, you’re terrific.’ No, you’re perfect for this. No, what does he say? You see it in the text, he says, ‘I will be with you. The issue is not who Moses is. The issue is who is with Moses,” he said. He stated that God is revealed through “revelation.” “He makes himself known,” said Begg. “Otherwise, we could never know him. We don’t find God by a consideration of ourselves and then project into divinity. We discover who we are by being made known of it through God himself.”

Pastor Begg ended his sermon with a reminder of God’s sufficiency. “Can I just say to you what I say to myself? That God, because of who he is, is sufficient for every season of life. He is sufficient for every responsibility that he entrusts to us. He is sufficient for all of our needs. And he keeps all of his promises,” he said. He quoted a hymn at the end, saying, “I do not know how many days of life are mine to spend, but one who knows and cares for me will keep me to the end. I do not know the course ahead, what joys and griefs are there, but one is near who fully knows. I’ll trust His loving care.”

Begg has pastored the church since 1983 and has had a worldwide audience through his radio show and online ministry, Truth for Life. He has largely been one of the most respected biblical teachers over the past four decades, though his comments in 2023 advising a grandmother to attend the wedding of her grandson to a trans individual did stir controversy. Begg stated he believed that as long as the grandmother let her grandson know she was not affirming him, attending the wedding could build a bridge to sharing the Gospel later. The advice, however, received swift criticism and he was pulled from American Family Radio and the Shepherds Conference. Begg, however, stated he was not ready to repent of his advice. “What happens to homosexual people, in my ‘experience,’ is that they are either reviled or they are affirmed,” he said of the controversy. “The Christian has to say, ‘We will not treat you in either of those ways. We cannot revile you, but we cannot affirm you. And the reason that we can’t revile you is the same reason why we can’t affirm you, because of the Bible, because of God’s love, because of His grace, because of His goodness.”