Submission to God's Fatherly Discipline / Pruning

In this part of the sermon: Martin begins by reading Hebrews 12 and John 15, then asks a pointed question about the first thing everyone did that brought joy: their first cry at birth, signifying life. He…

Martin asks what was the first thing everyone did that brought joy to those present. The answer is a baby's first cry, signifying life. This illustrates that breathing (life) is a non-negotiable necessity, paralleling fundamental spiritual necessities.

Now I begin our study in the word of God this morning by asking each and every one of you a very simple but a very pointed and personal question. And I mean you children, you young ones, you preteens, teenagers, young adults, middle-aged adults, and budding geriatrics, and anything in between, above, below, and beyond those descriptions. In other words, I want you to listen while I ask this question, whatever your age may be. And the question is this.

6:31 - 7:12 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin turns to Hebrews 12, particularly verses 5-13, as the watershed passage on God's discipline. He establishes the immediate context as a summons to persevering faith, likened…

The Christian life is likened to a marathon race, not a sprint, emphasizing the need for endurance and perseverance. This sets the context for understanding divine discipline as a means to help run the race well.

Let us run with patience, with steadfastness, the race that is set before us. And here the Christian life is likened not to a 55 meter dash or a 100 or 200 meter dash or even a mid-length run, an 800 or 1500 meter run. No, it is a marathon. And we are to run with it.

18:11 - 18:40 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin turns to Hebrews 12, particularly verses 5-13, as the watershed passage on God's discipline. He establishes the immediate context as a summons to persevering faith, likened…

Runners are encouraged by witnesses and must shed excess weight (clothing, hiking boots, winter parka) to run effectively. This illustrates the need to lay aside sin and hindrances in the Christian race.

Let us, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, these witnesses, the march your own, are not those who are witnessing by looking in upon us as we run. They are the ones described in the passage, in the previous chapter, who did run and ran well. Each one of whom says to us by his life and existence, it is worth anything to run well to the end. And seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, those who bear testimony to the blessedness of persevering in the Christian race, we are to run. The voice of the witnesses ringing in our ears. But then we a...

19:20 - 20:26 Read in full sermon

The point: Patiently endure the real pain of the chastening until it passes.

Martin states that if a child smiles during a spanking, it's not true chastening. This illustrates that God's discipline is genuinely grievous and painful, not joyous in the moment, but for a good purpose.

Verse 11, all chastening seems for the present not to be joyous but grievous, yet afterward it yields peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby. Even the fruit of righteousness. If I ever see a parent spanking the kid and the kid sitting there smiling and laughing, whatever he's doing he isn't chastening after the pattern of God. When God puts the rod on us, nobody giggles.

31:17 - 31:46 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He reiterates that the rod of correction is a crucial means of grace, essential for spiritual health. Martin defines chastening broadly, beyond specific trials of the Hebrew…

The specific privations, sufferings, and opposition faced by the Hebrew Christians from their fellow Jews (pillaging, physical affliction) are given as examples of God's rod of chastisement in their lives.

And we learn from other places in this epistle some of them had suffered the pillaging of their goods. Some of them had suffered physical opposition and physical affliction. All kinds of privations and they needed to understand that these things that from the hands of men were human cruelty were in the hands of God His loving rod of chastisement and discipline in order to accomplish His own saving purposes. But surely the chastisement of God is not limited to just the specifics that were experienced by the Hebrew Christians.

36:31 - 37:13 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He reiterates that the rod of correction is a crucial means of grace, essential for spiritual health. Martin defines chastening broadly, beyond specific trials of the Hebrew…

Martin quotes John Brown's commentary on Hebrews, explaining that God's chastisement is always for our profit, ordered by infinite wisdom, and intended to make us partakers of His holiness and convince us of His sufficiency for happiness.

And here I read from John Brown's most perceptive insights in his commentary on Hebrews and I trust you will find it helpful as I have had it helpful in my own thinking. He says Our Heavenly Father never chastises His children except for their profit. His object is uniformly their real advantage. The form the degree the duration of the affliction is all ordered by infinite wisdom so as best to gain this object.

37:13 - 37:48 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He reiterates that the rod of correction is a crucial means of grace, essential for spiritual health. Martin defines chastening broadly, beyond specific trials of the Hebrew…

Affliction can take any form – physical trials, financial pressures, shattered relationships, dashed hopes, viruses – and God can weave any of these into the 'scourge' by which He disciplines us for holiness.

Now that affliction may come in the obvious way of physical trials financial pressures and disappointments shattered relationships dashed hopes frustrated plans it can take any strand of any reality in that universe and weave it into the scourge by which He is going to discipline any one of us. It may be a little invisible living thing called bacteria a virus and a sovereign God sees to it and it levels us and may bring into our lives something that utterly reverses all that we had ever hoped and planned for and God dashes it into a thousand pieces. We need to see as the passage tells us that ...

40:08 - 41:37 Read in full sermon

Driving home: There is no such thing as a fruitless Christian. Now, there are degrees of fruit. Thirty, sixty, a hundredfold. This passage speaks of fruit. More fruit. Much fruit. But an utterly barren, fruitless Christian is somethin…

Martin quotes John Brown again, clarifying that 'cleansing' or 'purging' in John 15 includes not only cutting back excess growth but also removing insects, moss, and parasites from the fruit-bearing branch to prevent lessened fruitfulness.

To increase their fruitfulness, the Father will continually cleanse or prune them. Every branch that bears fruit, that is every branch or shoot that is in reality, and not in mere profession or appearance, united to me, so that my life flows into that branch, and there is a living union with me, He, the Father, continually, a present tense use of the verb, to cleanse, He continually cleanses it, that it may bear more fruit. Now obviously the primary function, the primary function of the vine dresser in cleansing the vine is to cut back the excess growth. But that's not the only aspect of the v...

47:16 - 48:22 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin then turns to John 15:1-3, explaining the metaphor of Christ as the true vine, believers as branches, and the Father as the vine dresser. He asserts that all true branches…

Martin quotes another author (via John Brown) describing how believers, unvisited by God's word and providence, can fall into self-indulgent indolence, allowing 'idle foliage' and 'worldly lust' to overrun their souls, hindering fruitfulness.

As far as I'm concerned, he's one of the most perceptive, accurate, balanced expositors who has graced the church in relatively modern church history. And he quotes another man saying that even the believer in his present state, when left long unvisited by severe applications of God's word and providence, is apt to feel a spirit of easy self-indulgent indolence creeping over his spiritual faculties, under which the display of Christian character and the exercise of Christian principles and the exhibition of Christian conduct become faint and languid. Now get the picture. While like a luxurianc...

50:10 - 51:15 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin then turns to John 15:1-3, explaining the metaphor of Christ as the true vine, believers as branches, and the Father as the vine dresser. He asserts that all true branches…

A vineyard after formal pruning looks 'brutalized,' as if someone is trying to kill the vines. This illustrates that God's pruning, though seemingly harsh, is for optimal fruitfulness, not destruction.

And if you've ever seen a vineyard after its formal pruning, it looks like it's been brutalized. You say, somebody's out to kill this poor bunch of vines. No, not kill them. Make them optimally fruitful.

51:36 - 51:53 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin then turns to John 15:1-3, explaining the metaphor of Christ as the true vine, believers as branches, and the Father as the vine dresser. He asserts that all true branches…

Martin imagines a vine that could think and talk, seeing the vine dresser approach with a razor-sharp pruning hook. The vine would want to hide, knowing deep cuts are coming, but for the purpose of bearing abundant fruit.

These chastisements, not joyous but grievous as they are, will end in a more abundant production of the peaceable fruits of righteousness. If a vine could talk, what do you think it might say come pruning time? Especially if it were a vine that had been looked over for a year or two at pruning time. And there was an unusual measure of profuse growth.

53:03 - 53:39 Read in full sermon