SUNDAY MORNING SERVICE

August 15, 2021

Justifying Justification

Pastor Chris Gardner

James 2:-20-26

You need to know that a workless faith is a worthless faith.

James was a half-brother of Jesus. As the Apostle over the Apostles, He headed the worldwide church in the first century, known as James the Just and a Jew of the Jews. Yet he mentions none of those titles or relationships because his salvation and calling was as a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Holy Bible

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

Matthew 7:7

Upcoming Events:

Church Announcements

Vacation Bible School 2021


This summer we are turning up the VOLUME to remind each kid that they can have confidence because of Jesus. Two hours of fun, Bible stories, skits, music, & crafts. July 19th - 23th 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM. Registration Form found here


Praise and Prayer Power Meeting

Since the beginning of the COVID lockdown, Metropolitan has established two online prayer groups. The daytime group prays at 1 pm Monday to Saturday with Thursday prayer focusing on the nation and government issues, while the evening prayer group convenes at 7 pm Monday to Thursday on Webex. For call-in information, please contact the church office at 718-236-1197 or metbaptist@outlook.com. Prayer is an essential ministry of the church as we pray for one another, for our missionaries, and for the issues facing our nation and the world.

Pastor’s Pen: August 2021 Issue 
Earlier in August, I shared with the congregation that Psalms 1 and 2 are intended by those individuals who organized the Psalms to create a bridge between the Hebrew prophetic section of their Bible and the Writings. Designed in the form of a chiasm, the two psalms begin and end with a promise of blessing upon the man who loves and serves God wholeheartedly. The end of Psalm 1 and the opening verses of Psalm 2 describe those who reject God and live selfishly.   read more... 

The latest Sermon Series
James: Life Under Pressure

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Many readers of the Scriptures turn to the book of James for its practical teachings on the Christian life. James touches on numerous aspects of biblical lifestyles including, social injustice, true faith, the will of God, facing temptation, how to pray, control of the tongue, and so much more. As numerous commentators have pointed out, the book of James has a similar style to the Old Testament wisdom literature. Reading James also sounds eerily similar to reading the Gospels with numerous allusions to the teaching of James’s half-brother, Jesus Christ.

Still, to read James only for its practical faith misses the richness of James’s overall message. The book of James has a wealth of theology hidden within the practical applications of those truths. James’s life applications flow out of a strong belief in the inerrancy of Scripture, the four doctrines of the gospel (condemnation, justification, sanctification, glorification), a heady view of Christ Jesus as God, and many other deep truths.

Three major themes that faced the early, Jewish church have relevance to the current state of the American church. The primary issue that within James is the fiery trials facing a persecuted church. For James, the trials and tribulations may be attributed to persecution, yet he covers a wide variety of trials and temptations beyond that of overt persecution. James recognizes that suffering and temptations grows out of social injustice. The second major topic is related to that of facing trials. For Christians to live a steadfast faith in the face of suffering requires the proverb-style wisdom from God. That biblical wisdom provides a strong faith in God’s sovereignty. The third theme flows out of the first two, the struggle for justice. For James and the early church that injustice manifested itself in an economic struggle between the rich and poor exacerbated by persecution.

James provides the answers to those three themes by showing the believer how the godly approach life differently than the ungodly. Through a description of righteous behavior in a plethora of situations, James helps Christian believers to see how the doctrinal truths of salvation through Jesus Christ results in different actions and thoughts formed from a perspective that views life from God’s viewpoint, while keeping in sight the eternal glories yet to be received.

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Sunday Learning Center

Sunday Learning Centers

Kindergarten through Adults
Sunday mornings at 9:30 AM - 10:30 AM


Sunday Morning Active Worship

11:00 AM - 12:30 PM,  each Sunday morning
Up-Coming Sermons: Romans (please see Podcast above)

Preacher: Senior Pastor Chris Gardner

Listen Pastor Chris’s Sermons on:

1.  The book of Genesis (2019 series)  
2.  The book of Genesis (2018 series)
3.    1 Timothy and Titus 
4.    Isaiah (to be launched soon)


Sunday Discipleship Gatherings

Special services, Christian Growth Seminars, small group meetings, and other varied events throughout the year. 


Praise and Prayer Power Meeting

7:00 pm each First Wednesday of each Month in the Fellowship Hall. Know more...


Welcome

Wanting answers to life? Looking for purpose and meaning? At Metropolitan, we seek to be relevant, while remaining faithful to the historic Christian faith. We have entered an era when church attendance and participation has become unfashionable. Skepticism is on the rise. We are okay with that for two reasons. On the one hand, Christianity has ceased to be a cultural movement. Those who come tend to have a desire to seek the truth. That means that the church must have answers to meet the increasingly questioning community..  READ MORE ...

Services

Sunday Morning Worship: 11:00AM-12:30PM
Child care: MBC Kid’s Club for children 1st-6th grades.
Sunday Learning Centers:
Kindergarten through Adults, 9:30AM-10:30AM.

See full service list

Our purpose

Metropolitan Baptist Church is a multi-ethnic church whose purpose is to create a passionate pursuit of God’s glory. MBC is committed to reaching the Southwest Brooklyn community through planting congregations for the ethnic groups moving into the area. READ MORE ...

Welcome from Our Senior Pastor Chris

To know how Jesus Christ will transform your life

Welcome to Metropolitan’s website. We pray that through it you will deepen your desire to passionately seek God’s glory, and if the Lord so leads, you might join us in this quest as part of our three congregations.

At Metropolitan, we have a purpose statement, a summary of why we believe God has placed this congregation in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. That purpose statement goes like this: The purpose of Metropolitan Baptist Church is to create a passionate pursuit of God’s glory that leads to active worship, profound fellowship, hungering discipleship, purposeful ministry, and the enthusiastic spreading of the Good News.

We understand that the whole of the human race, as created by the eternal God, came into being in order to glorify God with our whole being. God created us as bearers of His image. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:17).

Unfortunately, though He created us to bear His image, the human race has rebelled against God. Everyone has turned from bearing God’s image and has become selfish and self-centered. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 NIV).

That is why our purpose at Metropolitan is to create a passionate pursuit of God’s glory. We want our friends, neighbors, co-workers, family, and the whole world to realize that by rebelling against God and worshiping a god of their own making, they have failed to fulfill God’s purpose in creating them. As Pastor John Piper reminds us, God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him.

So we, at Metropolitan, are passionate about helping men and women, boys and girls to become passionate about pursuing God’s glory, so that each person can fulfill what he or she was created to be. The manifestation of that passionate pursuit of God’s glory will be the five characteristics given in the purpose statement above. In many ways, the adjectives carry more weight than the nouns.

A passionate pursuit of God’s glory will lead to active worship – not just showing up for a Sunday worship service, but a life lived daily as an act of worship to God. It also leads to profound fellowship – not just a friendly church, but a church where the idea of the Family of God has become a reality. Furthermore, hungering discipleship will become a reality – not just Bible study, but a deep desire to know and experience what it means to walk with God. The glory of God is best manifested in purposeful ministry – for ministry is service, and the New Testament word for worship means to serve with a committed heart. Since what brings God glory above all things is the restoration of a human being to a right relationship with God, those who pursue God’s glory will enthusiastically spread the Good News about Jesus Christ to the whole world.

I invite you to join us in this grand purpose. While we readily admit we have not attained this purpose, we have committed ourselves to pursue it with passion.

Know more about our Pastor and our church