Épisodes

  • Consider the Kindness & Severity of God | Ecc. 3:1-8, Rom. 11:22

    Consider the Kindness & Severity of God | Ecc. 3:1-8, Rom. 11:22
    Sep 14 2025
    Lord's Day: September 14, 2025 Preacher: Carlos Montijo Series: Current Issues Topic: Law & Gospel Distinction Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:1–8; Romans 11:22; 1 John 5:19; Psalm 12:8; 1 John 4:17; Psalm 86:15; Romans 4:6–8; Numbers 14:18; Romans 12:17–21; Isaiah 5:20–23; Romans 1:28–32; 8:28; Matthew 27:46; Luke 23:46; Philippians 2:8–9; Ephesians 5:15–17 Charlie Kirk was murdered while doing what he did best, reaching out to the youth in college campuses He could have been our future president, yet many were celebrating and mocking his murder on social media Iryna Zarutska was viciously murdered on a train by a violent repeat offenderA 16-year-old fired several rounds and almost killed two of his fellow students at Evergreen High School in Colorado, before fatally shooting himselfAll of these victims were very young—This is a time for weeping and mourning Our prayers go out to the friends and families of the victims: May God give them comfort and solace, and draw nigh to them with the light of His salvation May He bring healing, and restore justice, repentance, and revival to our land May He bring the wicked to justice And may He also convict them of their sin and grant them repentance I. This is a sample of the evil being done all over this world, this wicked world that lies under the power of the evil one Even as “the wicked strut about on every side when vileness is exalted among the sons of men” (Psalm 12:8 LSB)—God is still sovereign, God is still in control, and God’s will is still being donePart of the reason there is much evil in the world is because God is longsuffering, God suffers long, God is patientHis divine patience is revealed in His enduring mercy and love for sinners, and in His delay in exacting judgment, in part to enable wretched sinners like us to repent and be saved. II. Behold both the kindness and severity of God: Our great God and merciful Savior is also a just Judge God alone has a monopoly on vengeance (Rom. 12:17-21)God gives many sobering, dire warnings to the wicked, not just to the ones who murder, but also to the ones who celebrate wickedness (Isa. 5:20-23) III. Wickedness and violence is neither random nor senseless Know Your Enemy: The Devil | 1 John 2:14-17God ultimately designed and decreed a good purpose for us in everything that happens, no matter how bad (Rom. 8:28)We should seek justice, God’s justice, not our own; God’s way, not our own; and by God’s means rather than our own Matt Trewhella's The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate The Theology of the Cross (lowliness, suffering, humility) teaches us that God is often most present where He seems most absent.Ephesians 5:15–17: “Therefore look carefully how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. On account of this, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” Join us on Sundays for worship at 10:00am: ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church4712 Montana AveEl Paso, Texas 79903 Contact us at: web: ThornCrownCovenant.Churchcall/text: (915) 843-8088email: ThornCrownCovenantBChurch@gmail.com Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com
    Voir plus Voir moins
    Moins d'une minute
  • Knowing, Believing, Abiding in the God of Love | 1 John 4:16-17

    Knowing, Believing, Abiding in the God of Love | 1 John 4:16-17
    Sep 7 2025

    Lord's Day: September 7, 2025 Preacher: Carlos Montijo Series: First John Topic: Love Scripture: 1 John 4:16–17; 1 Corinthians 8:4–6; John 4:24; 6:69; 1 Corinthians 13:6–8; 1 John 4:7–10; Ephesians 2:3; Luke 3:38; 1 John 3:1–3; 1 Corinthians 2:16; 1 John 4:13; 3:24

    16And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has in us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17By this, love has been perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as He is, so also are we in this world. 1 John 4:16–17

    I. “And we have come to know and have believed…”

    • Belief, or faith, requires knowledge, understanding
    • Faith in turn seeks a deeper understanding: “Faith seeking understanding” (Anselm)
    • Augustine: Crede ut intelligas, “Believe that you may understand”
    • Faith requires content, an object, something to grasp, something to "hold on" to

    II. What is “the love which God has in us”?

    • God is love (v. 16), and God loves us, His chosen people, we who have come to know and have believed God are the objects of God’s amazing love
    • The love which God has in us is a Redemptive, Restorative, Regenerative, Reformative Love

    III. This passage is highly emphatic about God abiding in us and we in Him—in His love—united to Him in Christ

    • This mutually abiding union of love corresponds both to God and to us, and it must be true in both cases (God and us) and in the same sense (univocal)
    • Abiding in love does not mean to blindly obey God in fear, but to love and believe the truth, which is the foundation of our obedience, because true love “rejoices with the truth” (1 Cor. 13:6)
    • “This intimate fellowship consists of having the same ideas, of thinking alike, of being in extensive agreement. Hence, intimacy with God, too, consists in knowing what God thinks. That is to say, in knowing a good bit of theology.”[1]
    • A Marriage of Minds

    Join us on Sundays for worship at 10:00am:

    • ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church
      4712 Montana Ave
      El Paso, Texas 79903

    Contact us at:

    • web: ThornCrownCovenant.Church
      call/text: (915) 843-8088
      email: ThornCrownCovenantBChurch@gmail.com

    Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com

    [1] Gordon H. Clark, First John: A Commentary, Trinity Paper, No. 2, 2nd ed. (The Trinity Foundation, 1992), p. 143 .
    Voir plus Voir moins
    Moins d'une minute
  • Confessing the Son of God | 1 John 4:15

    Confessing the Son of God | 1 John 4:15
    Aug 31 2025

    Lord's Day: August 31, 2025 Preacher: Carlos Montijo Series: First John Topic: Faith Scripture: 1 John 4:15; Titus 2:13; 1 Corinthians 13:8; 1 John 4:2–3; Mark 3:11–12; Matthew 25:41; Luke 15:25–32

    15Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 1 John 4:15

    • There are familiar words, phrases, concepts that we have encountered before:
      • True believers, confession, assurance, mutual abiding/dwelling, God, love, God is love, glorification, eschatology ("day of judgment")
    • Interpretive Principle: Whenever the word God is used, without any other qualification or reference to a specific Person of the Godhead, it usually refers to God the Father

    I. Believers know that they belong to God and confess that reality

    • God’s love is final, immutable (never changes), never fails (1 Cor. 13:8)
    • Confessing that Jesus is the Son of God means that you willingly believe, and accept, and receive everything He taught, even though we may not understand all of it perfectly, and are committed to “keep all that He has commanded you” (Matt. 28:20), without hypocrisy and without denying or rejecting the truth of God’s Word that you do understand.

    II. What confession is not…

    • Important to both affirm and deny, compare and contrast, for clarity and understanding
    • This is not a false, hypocritical confession, or a partial confession that willfully denies other primary doctrines (like cults do), but a true confession of faith in the true gospel
    • Mark 3:11-12
    • The Prodigal's older brother, Luke 15:25-32

    Join us on Sundays for worship at 10:00am:

    • ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church
      4712 Montana Ave
      El Paso, Texas 79903

    Contact us at:

    • web: ThornCrownCovenant.Church
      call/text: (915) 843-8088
      email: ThornCrownCovenantBChurch@gmail.com

    Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com
    Voir plus Voir moins
    Moins d'une minute
  • Witnesses of God’s Redemptive Love | 1 John 4:13-14

    Witnesses of God’s Redemptive Love | 1 John 4:13-14
    Aug 24 2025

    Lord's Day: August 24, 2025 Preacher: Carlos Montijo Series: First John Topic: Love Scripture: 1 John 4:12–14; 1:1–3; John 15:26–27; 1:14; 2 Corinthians 5:7; Matthew 16:15–17; Ephesians 4:1–7; Romans 9:11, 16, 18; Galatians 4:4–6; Titus 2:13–14

    13By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14We have beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. 1 John 4:13-14

    I. We have beheld and we bear witness…

    • Who heard and saw, and beheld and touched with their hands “that which was from the beginning”?

    II. “Beheld” means more than mere physical sensation

    • Our physical eyes, however, do not impart to us spiritual understanding of and faith in the truth
    • Do we walk by sight, or by faith? (2 Cor. 5:7)
    • Matthew 16:15–17
    • The apostles beheld and bore witness “that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world,” not merely because they physically saw and interacted with Christ on earth—did not Judas Iscariot do the same?—but because God chose them and gave them the gift of faith
    • And we ourselves have received that same gift of that same faith from the same God, the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same Word, the same gospel (Eph. 4:1-7)

    III. To be the Savior of the world…

    • Is the Son the Savior of unbelievers? Of reprobates? Of Esau, or Pharaoh? Who is the Son the savior of?

    IV. Is the doctrine of Particular Redemption a recent development?

    • The Martyrdom of Polycarp (155-160 A.D.): “…we [Christians] will never be able to abandon the Christ, who suffered for the salvation of the whole world of those who are saved, the blameless for the sinful, or to worship anyone else. For we worship this one, who is the Son of God.”

    And when I think - that God, His Son not sparing / Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in
    That on a cross, my burden gladly bearing / He bled and died to take away my sin
    Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee / How great Thou art, how great Thou art

    Join us on Sundays for worship at 10:00am:

    • ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church
      4712 Montana Ave
      El Paso, Texas 79903

    Contact us at:

    • web: ThornCrownCovenant.Church
      call/text: (915) 843-8088
      email: ThornCrownCovenantBChurch@gmail.com

    Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com
    Voir plus Voir moins
    Moins d'une minute
  • The Person & Work of the Holy Spirit | 1 John 4:13

    The Person & Work of the Holy Spirit | 1 John 4:13
    Aug 17 2025

    Lord's Day: August 17, 2025 Preacher: Carlos Montijo Series: First John Topic: Holy Spirit Scripture: 1 John 4:12–13; Psalm 119:71; John 17:17; 1 Timothy 4:7; Romans 8:28–30; James 3:2; Ephesians 5:18; 1 Peter 1:18; 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18; Romans 8:3; Colossians 1:19; 2:9–10; Mark 10:45; Hebrews 9:14; 1 John 3:24; Romans 8:16–18

    By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 1 John 4:13

    • “Sanctification is a work of God's free grace whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.” (1693 Baptist Catechism, Q. 39)
    • God uses some of our good works and our participation in His means of grace as well as our participation in affliction which we are called to endure with hope, as secondary means of our sanctification (1 Tim. 4:7)
    • God’s love never fails us, and never gives up on us, His Spirit is always with us, abides in us, and remains in us

    I. The Holy Spirit is the primary Agent by which God’s Reformative Love is applied to us

    • Abraham Kuyper: “…bad habits of a certain character sometimes pass from father to child even where the early death of the former precludes propagation by education and example.”[1]
    • We are in the sanctifying process of being perfected by God’s Reformative love and through the Person and work of His Holy Spirit

    II. God’s Son, Christ Jesus, was the only one who was perfectly full of the Spirit

    • Christ relied on the Holy Spirit perfectly to accomplish His mission, “to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45)
    • Abraham Kuyper: “…what Christ needed was the gifts of the Holy Ghost to enable His weakened [human] nature, in increasing measure, to be His instrument in the working out of His holy design; and…to transform His weakened nature not by regeneration, but by resurrection into a glorious nature, divested of the last trace of weakness and prepared to unfold its highest glory.”

    III. If Christ on earth needed the Holy Spirit, how much more do we?

    • The Holy Spirit is frequently the most slandered Person of the Trinity, especially by religious people who call themselves Christians
    • He is often abused to justify all manner of wild imbalances, blasphemies, and heresies
    • Relying on the Holy Spirit primarily means to rely on His means of grace—Word, sacraments, prayer

    IV. One of the precious blessings that the Holy Spirit gives us is assurance

    • To grow in your understanding of the Person and work of the Holy Spirit, search the Scriptures carefully, systematically, apologetically

    Join us on Sundays for worship at 10:00am:

    • ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church
      4712 Montana Ave
      El Paso, Texas 79903

    Contact us at:

    • web: ThornCrownCovenant.Church
      call/text: (915) 843-8088
      email: ThornCrownCovenantBChurch@gmail.com

    Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com

    [1] Abraham Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit (Christian Classics Ethereal Library, n.d.), p. 102 [accessed 16 August 2025].
    Voir plus Voir moins
    Moins d'une minute
  • The Reformative Love of God | 1 John 4:11-13

    The Reformative Love of God | 1 John 4:11-13
    Aug 10 2025

    Lord's Day: August 10, 2025 Preacher: Carlos Montijo Series: First John Topic: Love Scripture: 1 John 4:11–13; 1 Corinthians 1:30–31; 1 John 4:8–9; 3:2; Romans 8:16–18; 5:1–5; Hebrews 12:5–11; Ephesians 2:3–13; Romans 9:23; 2 Peter 1:3–4; Romans 8:28–30; John 17:17; Jeremiah 23:28–29; Matthew 28:19

    11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 13By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 1 John 4:11–13

    I. The excellencies of God’s love correspond to the order of our salvation (ordo salutis)

    • The order of salvation is a result of, the consequence of, God’s love being poured out richly on all of us who have been chosen by God, to be loved by Him—it is all God’s gracious gift to us! Because God is love (1 John 4:8)

    II. Reformative: After regenerating us, God’s love continues to mold us, rebuke, chasten, discipline us, to conform us to the image of His Son

    III. The path of God’s Reformative love refines, sanctifies, prunes and perfects us

    • God’s Reformative love sanctifies us and “is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12) through suffering—but not as those who are without God and without hope in the world (Eph. 2:12)
    • God’s adoptive love for us as our heavenly Father disciplines and reforms us (Heb. 12:5-11)

    IV. God’s Law & Gospel of Love

    • A Redemptive, Restorative, justifying love, and a Regenerative and ongoing, Reformative, sanctifying love that disciplines us unto holiness, to make us more like His precious, unique Son, “so that we may share His holiness” (Heb. 12:10)

    V. God’s law and gospel both sanctify us in special ways, because they are both God’s holy Word

    • God’s holy love transforms us by His holy law, His holy gospel, His Holy Spirit

    Join us on Sundays for worship at 10:00am:

    • ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church
      4712 Montana Ave
      El Paso, Texas 79903

    Contact us at:

    • web: ThornCrownCovenant.Church
      call/text: (915) 843-8088
      email: ThornCrownCovenantBChurch@gmail.com

    Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com
    Voir plus Voir moins
    Moins d'une minute
  • The Perfected Love of God | 1 John 4:11-12

    The Perfected Love of God | 1 John 4:11-12
    Aug 3 2025

    Lord's Day: August 3, 2025 Preacher: Carlos Montijo Series: First John Topic: Love Scripture: 1 John 4:11–12; John 19:30; 1 John 4:7–9; Titus 3:4–7; 2 Corinthians 5:17; John 1:18; 4:24; 14:9; 13:34–35; Exodus 33:18–20

    11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 1 John 4:11–12

    I. Regenerative: God’s love regenerates us, recreates us, causes us to adjust our course and walk in newness of life as renewed creations

    • God’s love gives us repentance and faith, new spiritual life, gives us a new moral nature, a new disposition, by realigning our deepest convictions, thoughts, words, and actions to His Word and will

    II. No one has seen God at any time

    • Even though “no one has beheld God at any time,” yet He also demonstrates His abiding love through us and perfects His love in us, because He chose us to be the objects of His love and affections, and His love is regenerative and sanctifies us with a holy love for others, especially for our precious brothers and sisters in Christ
    • Although Moses spoke to God “face to face,” anthropomorphism (Exodus 33:18-20)

    Join us on Sundays for worship at 10:00am:

    • ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church
      4712 Montana Ave
      El Paso, Texas 79903

    Contact us at:

    • web: ThornCrownCovenant.Church
      call/text: (915) 843-8088
      email: ThornCrownCovenantBChurch@gmail.com

    Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com
    Voir plus Voir moins
    Moins d'une minute
  • The Manifested Love of God | 1 John 4:9-10

    The Manifested Love of God | 1 John 4:9-10
    Jul 27 2025

    Lord's Day: July 27, 2025 Preacher: Carlos Montijo Series: First John Topic: Love Scripture: 1 John 4:9–10; Romans 5:8–10; Ephesians 1:7–8; 1 John 2:1–2; 1 Corinthians 15:3; Isaiah 53:4–10; 1 John 3:1; 1 Peter 2:9–10; Revelation 1:5–6; 5:10; Romans 8:30

    9By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:7–10

    • Great gospel memory passage

    I. This “Other Love Chapter” explains what love truly is, and what it looks like

    • What then is love? God’s love is gospel; our love is law (obedience)
    • The Excellencies of God's love:
      • (a) Redemptive, Restorative (Justifying: Forensic [synthetic])
      • (b) Regenerative, Reformative (Sanctifying: Renovative, Transformative [analytic])

    II. Redemptive: God’s love forgives all our sins

    • How is our Redemption accomplished? One “Word”—Christ

    III. God’s gospel of love is a gospel of propitiation

    • The atonement is central to Christianity; propitiation is the heart of the gospel

    • Propitiation is “the means of appeasing wrath and gaining the good will of an offended person; especially with respect to sacrifices for appeasing angered deities.”[1]

    • You cannot be saved without a gospel of propitiation, you must believe the true gospel
    • Against Eastern Orthodoxy
    • 1 Corinthians 15:3
    • God, Man, Salvation, His Word—a failure to grasp these primary doctrines can lead to a false gospel
    • Isaiah 53:4–10
    • You cannot understand God’s love unless you understand God’s wrath
    • You cannot have God’s love unless God’s wrath has been satisfied through His Son whom He sent, to be the propitiation for our sins.

    IV. Restorative: God’s love not only restores to us the benefits that we lost in the Fall, but surpasses them with more blessings and benefits

    Join us on Sundays for worship at 10:00am:

    • ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church
      4712 Montana Ave
      El Paso, Texas 79903

    Contact us at:

    • web: ThornCrownCovenant.Church
      call/text: (915) 843-8088
      email: ThornCrownCovenantBChurch@gmail.com

    Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com

    [1] Rick Brannan, ed., Lexham Research Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, Lexham Research Lexicons (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020).
    Voir plus Voir moins
    Moins d'une minute