Pastor Matthew Richer's Testimony

As the current pastor of Grace Church Stafford I have been asked to share with you a little about myself, my background and how I came to know the Lord. Which I hope will be of some help and encouragement to you. I have been in the ministry in Stafford now for some twenty years or so, during which time we have seen plenty of change. Old friends have moved on, and new friends have joined us.

But throughout it all the Lord has shown himself unswervingly faithful, tirelessly gracious and abounding in kindness to my family and I. This is all a far cry however from my early years, for although I grow up in a quiet home counties village and in a loving home, it was all resoundingly unbelieving in which the Lord was allowed no room to bless.

All this changed for me in my mid-twenties when, quite apart from any outside human agency, I inexplicably become aware of my sin by reason of a violently condemning conscience. This persisted for a solid two years, by which time I was reduced to such a state of distress I could not function normally, and was referred by my GP for counselling to try and prevent a full-blown nervous breakdown.

As it turned out my designated counsellor was a distant family friend, which I imagine would not even be allowed today for ethical reasons, but as it turned out for me, it proved instrumental in my salvation. During our sessions, I explained my increasing sense of guilt, powerlessness to change certain destructive patterns of thought and behaviour, and that I knew of no way whereby one might change ones own human nature.

Through all this she sat patiently and listened carefully, then to my surprise explained that none of the strands of psychoanalysis at her disposal could address my situation because they were all founded upon the principle that the answer lies within oneself. The best she could do was to help me exchange my destructive behaviours for ones which were less so.

As you can imagine, this left me feeling somewhat disconsolate and hopeless. Thankfully, she proceeded to explain that even though she was not religious much of what I had been describing reminded her of the kind of language used during her brief time in Sunday school as a child so maybe as part of what she called my healing journey I might like to consider "trying church", as she put it. Having no other options I did as advised, unfortunately this did not go well to start with because the first church that I went to I was hurried on my way to sitting in someone’s 'designated seat', (habitual seating position).

Mercifully The Lord did not suffer me to give in all together to despair, instead He led me to a tiny Congregational Chapel where a faithful man of God, Rev. Peter Robinson, to whom I shall be forever grateful, was preaching The Gospel, very simply as the hymn goes; “As to a little child…” In which he explained to the gathered congregation, myself included, how God The Son had humbled Himself to become one of us, yet without sin, had lived a perfect life of obedience and love, which is beyond our power to live because of our sinful nature. That He had died as a Substitute in the place of all who put their faith in Him, suffering the penalty for their sins at the bar of divine justice to settle their debt, and had risen from the dead that His righteousness might be counted as ours (put to our bankrupt account).

In order that clothed in His merits and obedience and washed in His blood, we sinners might be cleansed of all our guilty stains, reconciled to God, no longer under condemnation but made children of His Love in Christ Jesus, His beloved Son. Praise God, in that hour it was given to me to both understand and believe The Gospel of God's Grace and to know the blessed joy of sins forgiven and peace with God.

It's been a long journey since which has brought me to the ministry in Stafford, but I’ll leave that for another time, perhaps we will have an opportunity to talk about it if you can come and join us some day at grace.

I’d just like to leave you with this one thought. If He could lead me to salvation from sin and hopeless despair; He can save you too, so I pray that you look to Him and be saved if you’re not already.