Written by Guy M. Richard |
Sunday, August 28, 2022
Sorrow is restorative. It not only prompts us to meditate on the circumstances of our lives and our faith in Christ, but it is also the means whereby we experience restoration and healing. That seems to be the point of Ecclesiastes 7:3, which says: “for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.” Sadness, in other words, is the means by which the heart is made glad or, we could put it this way, sadness is unto gladness. Sorrow is never an end in itself for God’s people but always a means to an end. In this case, we need to be reminded that it is a means to the end of restoration and healing.

Have you ever been to the beach on a day when the red flags were flying and tried to swim in the surf only to be knocked down by the first wave that came along and, before you could get up, adjust your swimsuit, and wipe the salt water from your eyes, you were knocked down again by the next wave? If so, then you will know what the Christian life can so often feel like for many of God’s people. Wave after wave of disappointment, failure, and hardship can so frequently overwhelm us and knock us to the ground. And before we have time to get up and reorient ourselves the next wave is bearing down upon us.
I can’t think about this idea without thinking about a couple in my congregation who lost both of their sons and one of their daughters-in-law within a span of a few short years. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for them to deal with losing one child, let alone three in such a short period of time. How does anyone continue to stand in the midst of this kind of devastation as wave after wave after wave knocks us to the ground? How does anyone even put one foot in front of the other much less “rejoice always” and “give thanks in all circumstances,” as Paul calls us to do in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-17?
These are questions we will all wrestle with at some point in our lives. We know this is true because the Bible explicitly states that hardship and difficulty are unavoidable for everyone who takes up their cross and follows after Christ. Not only is the Christian life one of incessant cross-bearing, but it is also one in which trials and tribulations are a necessary part of the world in which we live, as Jesus Himself promises in John 16:33: “In the world you will have tribulation.” We are not, therefore, to “take heart” in the absence of trials and tribulations but in the fact that Jesus has already “overcome the world.”
Peter, echoing the words of Jesus, warns us that we ought never to be surprised when the “fiery trial…comes upon” us “as though something strange were happening” to us (1 Pet. 4:12). Hardship and difficulty and grief and pain are exactly what we should expect to experience because we live in a world that has been infected and affected by sin and which is inhabited by people who have themselves been infected and affected by sin. The apostle John, moreover, associates weeping and mourning with death in Revelation 21:4, which clearly implies that until Jesus returns sorrow, grief, and pain will be as unavoidable as death. Not only will we all die; but we will also all experience the death of friends and family members as well. This fact ensures that we will all necessarily go through seasons of sorrow and mourning, sometimes to greater degrees and sometimes to lesser degrees. We will all face heartbreaking disappointments, debilitating setbacks, and demoralizing defeats. Thankfully, we won’t all have to deal with the loss of three children one right after the other; but we will most definitely experience some amount of disappointment, pain, and loss. We will know what it’s like to walk through “the valley of the shadow of death” (Ps. 23:4), and sometimes for extended seasons too. And that is something that applies to everyone across the board.
The Bible has a great deal to say about sorrow and pain, besides the fact that they are inevitable. In what remains of this article, therefore, I’d like to look at some of the things that the Bible teaches about sorrow. I will explore the first three ideas in this article and the last two in my next post. My hope is that whenever you may find yourself walking through the valley of the shadow of death you will be helped by these reminders. So, strap in; we are hitting the ground running.
Read More
Related Posts:

Written by Guy M. Richard |
Friday, July 8, 2022
We ought to look at rest for what it is: a blessing from God to fit us for heaven. We need to remember this whenever we may be tempted to bristle at the idea of resting. God is preparing us for an eternity with Him in His presence, one in which we will be perfectly resting and perfectly working at the same time forevermore.

I find it fascinating that all of the blessings Jesus secured for the believer in and through His mediatorial work—including, most especially, heaven itself—are frequently depicted in the Bible in terms of rest. This is overwhelmingly the case in Hebrews 4, for instance, when the apostle speaks of heaven in terms of “entering [God’s] rest” (v. 1) and then exhorts Christians in his own day to “strive to enter that rest” (v. 11) by believing in the Lord rather than disobeying Him and, thus, “failing to reach it” (v. 1). The apostle’s ongoing reference to Psalm 95 (Heb. 3:7-11; 4:3, 5, 7) and his explicit mention of both Moses (3:16) and Joshua (4:8) indicate that this rest was foreshadowed and typified in the land of Canaan (see especially 4:8-9). But it was also foreshadowed and typified in the system of “sabbaths” that God instituted beginning with His own resting after He had finished the work of creation. Thus heaven is also referred to as a “Sabbath rest for the people of God,” one in which we rest from our works in the same way “as God did from his” (4:9-10).
In referring to heaven as rest that is typified in the land of Canaan, the apostle is teaching us that the promised land was designed to point God’s people to and prepare them for heaven. It was never intended as an end in itself. That much is obvious in the fact that we are told Moses and Joshua were unable to give God’s people permanent rest on earth (Heb. 4:8). They could only provide a temporary respite, because it was only in the heavenly “promised land”—of which Canaan was a type—that the people could receive lasting rest. So while the rest provided by the earthly promised land was not an end in itself for the people of Israel, it was, nevertheless, intended as a means to prepare them for their ultimate end, which was heaven. The rest they enjoyed in Canaan whet their appetites for more, for better, and for more extensive rest in heaven. It gave them a sample taste, an hors d’ouvre if you will, that set the stage for the main course.
In referring to heaven as a “Sabbath rest” that is typified in the system of sabbaths given to Israel, the apostle is teaching us that the purpose for the sabbath principle was to prepare God’s people for a rest that will be permanent and lasting. The system of sabbaths called them to live eschatologically, with their eyes on the last day. Each week they were reminded that they were heading toward an eternal and superior rest in the presence of the Lord.
Read More
Related Posts:

Written by Guy M. Richard |
Sunday, June 12, 2022
How we rest and how long we rest are very subjective matters on this side of the Fall. The most important thing is that we take time to rest in some capacity so that we can do our work—filled with pain and difficulty and opposition—and do so in such a way that God gets all the praise and the glory.

If, as I argued last time, we all need to rest, then this raises an immediate question: what do we do with passages in the Bible which seem to suggest that even a small amount of rest is enough to destroy us? Take Proverbs 6:10-11 and 24:33-34, for instance, both of which say the same exact thing:
A little sleep, a little slumber,a little folding of the hands to rest,and poverty will come upon you like a robber,and want like an armed man.
According to these verses, even a little sleep and a little rest is too much if we want to stay out of the poor house and be able to provide for ourselves and our families. If that is true, then why in the world would I argue in my last article that we all need to rest?
In answering this question, we need to begin by remembering that the three most important rules of real estate—location, location, location—apply to biblical interpretation as well. In order to understand what these two proverbs are intending to say, therefore, we need to first understand the context in which they are located. In both of these cases, we can readily see that the context is aimed at addressing laziness and foolishness. Rather than providing general wisdom for all people without distinction, these two proverbs are instead specifically speaking to the “sluggard” and to the “man lacking sense.”As human beings, we are all different. We have different personalities, different motivations, and different experiences that have shaped us and made us who we are today. Some of us struggle with working too much, and we may need to be reminded of the importance of rest. Those of us who tend in this direction would benefit from having the passages that we mentioned last time held before our eyes consistently. Others of us, however, struggle with resting too much, and we may need to be reminded of the importance of work. We require passages like these two proverbs to be held before us, which are obviously designed to challenge our affinity for rest and relaxation.
But we may also require passages like Genesis 2:15 to be consistently held before us, especially when it is taken alongside of Genesis 3:15-19. These two passages taken together imply that work is a creation ordinance which was given to humankind from the very beginning but was later corrupted when sin entered into the world. The implication that arises from them is that work and rest always went together perfectly before the Fall. Work was not wearisome before the Fall nor was it laborious. It was wholly restful all the time. We know this is true, because Genesis 3:17-19 highlights the radical change that sin brought upon our work. All our labors from this point forward involve “sweat” and “pain” and thoroughgoing opposition for the rest of our lives.
Read More
Related Posts:

Written by Guy M. Richard |
Monday, April 25, 2022
How different would things be if we were motivated by love for others and if we approached the giving of criticism from the perspective of regarding ourselves as the foremost of sinners. If we were able to do this, the watching world might just see more of Christ in us and begin asking for the reason for the hope that is in us.

Years ago, I confronted my wife about something in her life that I thought she needed to change. I put time into formulating what I should say. I even prayed about it and asked the Lord to give me the right words. But it wasn’t until an hour or two after I had confronted her—during which time she patiently explained how insensitive and mean I had been in doing what I had done—that I actually understood how destructive my criticism had been. It had accomplished the exact opposite of what I had intended.
I think that the vast majority of the criticism that is offered today in Christian circles is like that. It is destructive rather than constructive. It tears the other person (or people) down rather than building them up. Why is that? Why are we as Christians so poor at giving healthy, constructive criticism to others?
While I am sure that there are many answers to this question, I am also sure that one of the main reasons we struggle so much in giving constructive criticism is because we think that “speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) necessarily means that we should say everything that we think or point out everything that we see. Perhaps we don’t really believe that God will in fact bring to completion the good work that He has begun in someone else’s life (Phil. 1:6), or perhaps we don’t trust the Holy Spirit’s timing, and we see ourselves as being indispensable to this particular person’s sanctification. Or, it may even be that we don’t believe that the Holy Spirit will actually lead His people “into all the truth” (John 16:13) until and unless we step in to help Him out.
In all of these situations, we are playing God. We are putting ourselves in His place, and we are seeking to do what He says He will do. We need to remind ourselves that the most important part of the phrase, “speaking the truth in love” is the last two words. Love does not do what is easiest or most convenient; it does not do what is best for ourselves. It always does what is best for the other person. If we say everything that we think or point out everything that we see, we may be loving ourselves quite well but we are probably not loving the other person at all.
That was certainly the case for me when I confronted my wife many years ago. I didn’t have her best interest in mind. I had my own interests in mind. I knew that I had problems of my own, to be sure, but I didn’t have the particular problem that I was seeing in her—or so I thought. Pointing out her problem made me feel better about myself and about my problems. It made me feel like I was better than she was. If I had been driven by my love for her, instead of my love for myself, I may still have approached her about the specific issue, but I would have done it quite differently.
For one thing, I would have been slower to speak and quicker to listen and to understand what she was going through (James 1:19).
Read More
Related Posts:

Written by Guy M. Richard |
Sunday, December 26, 2021
Just as our muscles grow and are strengthened by resistance and pain and they wither without these things, so the same can be said of saving grace. It grows stronger in difficulty and atrophies in the absence of it. Grace, as Rutherford also said, really does grow best in winter weather. It is not like most of the agricultural produce in our world that grows best when the sun is shining and the temperatures are mild. Saving grace grows best in the coldest and harshest of seasons. And that too is why Paul can rejoice in his sufferings.

Many years ago, as part of our church’s search to find a new assistant pastor, my wife and I took the leading candidate and his wife to dinner so that we could all get to know one another better. At some point during our conversation, we began discussing the hobbies that we each enjoyed. In describing my love for intense forms of exercise (I can’t do anything moderately!), I told them rather matter-of-factly, “I love pain.” And I didn’t think anything about it at the time. I was just sharing something that was rather unique about myself.
Several years after this dinner conversation, the candidate—who had since become our assistant pastor—told me how intimidated he had felt when I had mentioned my love for pain that night. After all, only a crazy person would say something like this. No one, in their right mind, actually loves pain, do they?While it certainly wasn’t my intention to intimidate anyone, it is nevertheless true that it can be quite overwhelming for most people to hear someone describing themselves as I did on that occasion. I may not have seen that in connection to my own comments, but I have seen it in the words that the apostle Paul writes about himself in Colossians 1:24: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings.” Surely we all find this statement to be a little overwhelming. Some of us may even be intimidated by it. How can Paul say this? How can suffering be something that anyone rejoices in, ever?
In answering this question, I need to point out that Paul isn’t saying that his sufferings are worth rejoicing in all by themselves. I mention this for at least three main reasons. First, Paul’s use of the word “now” in Colossians 1:24 suggests that he is rejoicing in the present time (the time of his writing) for those sufferings that he had previously experienced in the past. He seems to be looking at his sufferings after the fact and seeing how God had used those afflictions for good in his life and rejoicing in that rather than in the sufferings themselves. Second, and this confirms the first reason, the context of Colossians 1:24 and of Romans 5:3-5—which are the only two times that Paul explicitly speaks of rejoicing in suffering—both explain why it is that Paul is rejoicing in his suffering and why we should be too. Third, when I say that I love pain, I don’t mean that I love the pain itself. I love what it accomplishes in me when I push myself and refuse to give in to it. I know that I become stronger, faster, better than I was before. The pain is a means to an end. I want the end, and so I embrace the means to get there. And the same thing would appear to be true of the apostle Paul.
Read More

Written by Guy M. Richard |
Friday, October 1, 2021
When we come face-to-face with the God of the Bible, when we look out over the expanse of who He is and we really see it, we cannot help but be overwhelmed with His weightiness and significance. And when we do, inevitably we will see how incredibly small and insignificant we are in comparison. It is an excellent antidote to the priorities and perspectives of the world in which we live—which is, as Packer called it, a world of “God-shrinkers.” But, more than that, it is only when we come face-to-face with the “Godness” of God that we will feel the full weight of our sin and gain a full appreciation for the cross of Christ, which sets us free from the full weight of our sins forevermore.

Just over sixty years ago, J.B. Phillips wrote a book in which he attempted to call out many of the common tendencies that he saw in the twentieth century to reduce God down to size. His book, aptly titled Your God Is Too Small, was an effort at presenting a clearer and more accurate picture of “the God who is there” (to borrow the name of one of Francis Schaeffer’s well-known works). More recently, J.I. Packer and David Wells have followed Phillips’ example and have called out contemporary misconceptions of God in similar ways. Wells, for instance, has argued that modern Western people now generally see God as carrying little or no weight in their lives. He is inconsequential, unimportant, and barely noticeable for most of us. Packer has even gone so far as to suggest that our time will be remembered, above all other times, as the age of the “God-shrinkers.” More than any other period in history, he says, our age has become convinced that God is irrelevant and insignificant. As Packer puts it, God is barely a “smudge” on the page of our secularized lives.

In one sense, these ideas are really nothing new. Ever since the garden of Eden, Satan has been seeking to convince each of us that we can “be like God” (Gen. 3:5). The clear assumption behind this lie is that you and I can actually be like Him. It is an explicit denial of the “Godness” of God, an obvious rejection of the Creator-creature distinction, and a glaring repudiation of the holiness of God (defined as otherness). To believe that we can “be like God” is to exalt ourselves and, at the same time, to reduce God down to size. Satan has been working that angle since the very beginning. So, we really should not be all that surprised when we see it at work in our own day and time.
Long before Phillips, Packer, or Wells walked the face of the earth, the Apostle Paul warned us about these things. He told us that sin would run its course in our lives and that, as a result, we would “[exchange] the truth about God for a lie” and would “[worship] and [serve] the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!” (Rom. 1:25). Satan, according to Jesus, is a “liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). He would like nothing more than for us to believe that we can “be like God.” He would like nothing more than for us to shrink God down to our size, to render Him inconsequential, unimportant, and barely noticeable in our lives. And it would seem that we have embraced the lie. In mass quantities, we have swallowed it whole.
But, as Phillips reminded us, the God of the Bible is not small. He is no mere lightweight. In the words of Mr. Beaver from C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the God of the Bible is definitely not “a tame lion.” He is significant and weighty. He is exalted and regal. He is “high and lifted up; and the train of his robe fill[s] the temple” (Isa. 6:1).

Written by Guy M. Richard |
Wednesday, September 22, 2021
Prayer is not preparation for the real work that leaders do. It is the real work. Prayer gives us access to God and to every help that we need to live the Christian life and to minister where God has placed us. For, as Paul said under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).
Prayer Is Our Lifeline on the Battlefront
Paul teaches us in Ephesians 6:10–20 that our lives will be characterized by war—not war against earthly powers and armies but war against “the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, [and] against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (v. 12). The devil and all who do his bidding, Paul says, are seeking to thwart the Lord’s work in the world by destroying his people, leading us astray, and rendering us ineffective.
But the Lord has not left us alone in our struggle. He has given everything we need to take our stand and fight. He has given us the “belt of truth,” the “breastplate of righteousness,” the “readiness” that comes from the “gospel of peace,” the “shield of faith,” the “helmet of salvation,” and the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (vv. 14–17). What is more, he has also given us access to him in prayer. That is why Paul encourages us to give ourselves to “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” (v. 18). He knows that we are at war, and because we are, we need to be able to call in to our commanding General for help at every moment.
John Piper has helpfully referred to prayer as “a war- time walkie-talkie” that connects us to our commanding General and enables us to “call in firepower for conflict with a mortal enemy.”8 In speaking this way, Piper reminds us that we are not alone in our fight. It’s not that God has given us everything we need to make our stand and then left us to fend for ourselves. God has given us every- thing we need, and he has also given us ongoing access to himself. We have access to his limitless supplies of wisdom, power, and grace. We have access to all that he is, in and of himself, whenever and wherever we may need it. And that is a tremendous blessing!
Prayer is necessary precisely because you and I are at war. God has given us prayer so that we can survive. It is our lifeline that connects us to him. When we realize that, we will be more motivated to give ourselves to prayer and, specifically, to kingdom-focused prayer. Praying for God’s kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven (see Matt. 6:10) is not simply an optional luxury when we are at war. It is an absolute necessity. It is life itself.
Given the importance of prayer as a lifeline to secure the help of our commanding General in our fight against Satan and his armies, it should be no surprise that the apostles give pride of place to the role of prayer in their exercise of leadership. They see that their primary responsibility is to “devote [themselves] to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4). Note the order—first prayer, then the ministry of the Word. Since the apostles were also elders in the church (see 1 Peter 5:1), what they say about the place of prayer in their own ministries applies to all those who serve as elders. In fact, I would apply it to every follower of Jesus, because we are all called to some kind of ministry, whether that takes place within our group of friends, our family, our workplace or community, or our church.
If everything we have said about the nature of the Christian life and the role of prayer in it is true, then it makes sense that those who take up the mantle of leadership would give first place to prayer. The degree to which we don’t is the degree to which we misunderstand what prayer is and why we should be doing it. Prayer is not preparation for the real work that leaders do. It is the real work. Prayer gives us access to God and to every help that we need to live the Christian life and to minister where God has placed us. For, as Paul said under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).
This is an excerpt from the chapter, “Prayer is Necessary” from Guy M. Richard’s book, “Persistent Prayer,” part of the Blessings of the Faith series. Pick up a copy of, “Persistent Prayer” for more gospel encouragement and practical tools for growing in prayer. Used with permission.