Pastor Rick Warren opened his final sermon at Saddleback Church on Sunday, Aug. 28 with a familiar question.

“Have I told you lately that I love you?” he asked the packed congregation at Saddleback’s main campus in Lake Forest and those watching remotely. Saddleback Church regularly draws a weekly global audience of more than 40,000 people.

It was a far larger audience than heard his first sermon with the church on Easter in 1980, with a small crowd in attendance at Laguna Hills High School.

But in his last sermon before he retires, there were callbacks to that first service and those in the following decades. He delivered the same sermon Sunday that he did on his first day, called “The Beginning of a Miracle.”

“In that first sermon, I was speaking to strangers about a church that didn’t exist,” Warren said Sunday.

Warren, 68, gave the service behind the same pulpit that he used in his first service. That pulpit was used in 79 different facilities; the church moved that frequently before it settled into its Lake Forest headquarters.

Warren announced in June 2021 that he planned to retire and step back into less “visible position as founding pastor,” but he said then he and his wife, Kay, will remain part of Saddleback into their older years.

Pastor Andy Wood was announced as Warren’s successor on June 2. In a tearful plea Sunday, Warren called on the Saddleback congregation to support Wood and his wife Stacie and commit to help carry the church forward to new generations.

Sunday’s sermon, the upcoming weekend’s celebration of the Warrens’ time with Saddleback Church and Wood’s ensuing installation will mark a huge transition for the church that had humble beginnings and now has 14 Southern California locations and reaches people across the world.

The Warrens said they committed to reach 40 years after selecting Saddleback Valley to start the church in 1980.

“Kay and I made this crazy promise when we were 25 years old that we would give 40 years to one location, that we wouldn’t move and that we wouldn’t be tempted to go to another church,” Warren said in 2019.

In his sermon Sunday, Warren delivered a message that seemed to capture his journey with Saddleback Chuch.

“Begin with the end in mind,” he said. “Know what God wants you to do.”