Our series during Ordinary time will explore the revelation of God’s Kingdom through his Son. We will look specifically how the incarnation—the ministry, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ—reveals the long-promised Kingdom of God breaking into human history demonstrating God’s love, destroying the powers that ravaged creation, and displaying the Messiah’s promise (to continue reading this essay, click on image above).
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YOUR KINGDOM COME
Pastoral Resources | 2025-26 Themes At-A-Glance
Week 1: ANTICIPATION: The Mountain of the Lord, Isaiah 2:1-5
Isaiah’s vision of the mountain of the Lord reveals that God’s ultimate purpose for humanity is the coming of his kingdom rule, bringing the peace that only his divine wisdom and justice can produce. When nations finally submit to the Lord’s instruction and authority, the systemic violence that has characterized human history gives way to the Lord’s reconciliation, transformation, and flourishing. The promise of the Kingdom is the hope that the Lord will bring about lasting peace when all is submitted to his righteous rule. This prophetic promise calls us to anticipate the coming of Christ, seeking in the meantime to display God’s instruction for the conflicts in our own lives and communities, operating by his wisdom and justice rather than the patterns of power and retaliation that mark the world’s way of resolving differences. As Advent people living between the first and second comings of Christ, let us embody this coming reality now by becoming agents of reconciliation who direct others to the rule of Messiah Jesus, the Prince of Peace, the only one who can bring lasting peace to humankind.
Invocation
Stir up our hearts, Lord God, to prepare the way of your only Son. By his coming strengthen us to serve you with purified lives; through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
~ Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Conference of Bishops, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, p. 359), Conference of Bishops, ELCA. Bread for the Day 2008: Daily Bible Readings and Prayers, Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2007.
Gloria Patri
Glory be to the Father,
And to the Son and to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning,
Is now, and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen, amen.
Chronological Scripture Readings for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the entire Bible in one year in chronological order.
Sunday: Genesis 1-3
Lectionary Readings for Today
Our readings from the Psalms, the Old Testament, the Gospels and the Epistles are taken from the Revised Common Lectionary for this week.
Psalm: Psalm 122
Old Testament (or Acts [during Eastertide]): Isaiah 2:1-5
Gospel: Matthew 24:36-44
New Testament: Romans 13:11-14
Click here for all of this week’s Scripture readings
Psalms and Proverb for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the Psalms and Proverbs each month.
Sunday: Psalm 30, 60, 90, 120, 150 and Proverbs 30
First week of Advent: The Mountain of the Lord, Isaiah 2:1-5
In the coming Kingdom, the word for the governance of the peoples will come from the mountain of the Lord, where he will bring about a global ministry of peace, settling conflicts, and ending war.
Reflection
Isaiah receives a prophetic vision of the last days when the Lord will establish his house as the supreme authority over all the earth, exalted above every competing power and drawing all nations into a voluntary pilgrimage toward his presence. The people will come not as conquered subjects but as eager subjects and students, inviting one another to ascend the mountain of the Lord that he might teach them his ways and that they might walk in his paths, for the authoritative word of governance and instruction will flow from Zion. In this coming Kingdom, the Lord will exercise his royal prerogative as the righteous judge, arbitrating disputes between nations and settling conflicts that have historically erupted into violence, bringing his perfect justice to bear on the contentions of the peoples. The Lord will radically transform human society, as nations redirect their resources from implements of war to instruments of cultivation, no longer training for combat but learning the ways of peace instead under the Lord’s instruction. We can anticipate this glorious future by walking in the light of the Lord in the present, allowing the promise of God’s coming Kingdom to shape our current faithfulness and obedience.
Engaging God’s Word Today
In what areas of your life—whether personal relationships, community tensions, or broader social conflicts—are you still operating according to the world’s patterns of power and self-assertion rather than seeking the Lord’s instruction and peacemaking? How might you become a “person of Advent” who lives now according to the values of God’s coming Kingdom, actively directing others toward the mountain of the Lord and modeling the transformation from hostility to peace?
Nicene Creed
We believe in one God, The Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.
We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Begotten Son of God,
Begotten of the Father before all ages,
God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God,
Begotten not created, of the same essence as the Father,
through Whom all things were made.
Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and became human.
Who for us too, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried.
The third day He rose again according to the Scriptures, ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and His kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver,
Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Who together with the Father and Son is worshiped and glorified.
Who spoke by the prophets.
We believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sin,
and we look for the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the age to come. Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen.
Doxology
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him all creatures here below;
Praise Him above ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
Benediction
Make us, we beseech Thee, O Lord our God, watchful and heedful in awaiting the Coming of Thy Son Christ our Lord; that when He shall come and knock, He may find us not sleeping in sins, but awake, and rejoicing in His praises; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
~ Gelasian (Bright, 16) Bright, William. Ancient Collects and Other Prayers: Selected for Devotional Use from Various Rituals, 8th ed. Oxford and London: James Parker, 1908.
Scripture Memory for this season
Mark 1:14-15 (ESV): The Time is Fulfilled, The Fall of Humankind and the Curse Overturned
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Scripture Engagement
As disciples of Jesus, the Churches of Christ the King strongly seek to engage the Scriptures to discover the centrality of Christ and his Kingdom in the prophetic and apostolic writings. You will find a rich treasure of resources on engaging Scripture at the Center for Scripture Engagement of Taylor University.
Books We Are Reading this Church Year, and When
• The Most Amazing Story Ever Told, Dr. Don Davis (during season of Advent)
• Kingdom of God, Rev. Terry Cornett and Dr. Don Davis (during season of Christmas)
• Who Gets to Narrate the World, Robert E. Webber (during season of Epiphany)
• Destined for the Throne, Paul Billheimer (during seasons of Lent, Holy Week, and Resurrection)
• The Presence of the Future, George Eldon Ladd (during seasons of Ascension and Coming of Holy Spirit)
• Kingdom, Church and World, Howard Snyder (during seasons of Headship and Harvest)
• The Gospel of the Kingdom, George Eldon Ladd (during the seasons of Hope and Remembering the Saints, Exalting the King)
Book Reading Reflection: The Most Amazing Story Ever Told
(Reading “The Most Amazing Story Ever Told” during season of Advent)
The Scriptures lay out for all to see the divinely authorized Story of the triune God – in his wondrous acts in creation, his people Israel, the Incarnation, and the Church. God the Father Almighty is the divine author of the Story, Jesus of Nazareth is the Story’s hero, the Holy Spirit is the Story’s narrator and producer, and the Bible is its script and record. This Story represents the Church’s essential biblical faith. God tells and narrates this Story in the Bible, and as we read it we come to understand that Story as God’s divinely authorized narration of his wondrous work of salvation. Moreover, the Church of God is the Story’s protector and guardian. As we walk by faith in the Son of God we prove ourselves to be the Story’s living, present-day continuation – amazingly, God’s community becomes the place where God’s kingdom reign is seen and experienced.
This great Story of God’s love and life becomes, then, our master narrative through which we see the world, and by which we fulfill our mission. In the Church’s theology, she reflects on the Story’s truth and glory, and in her worship, she sings, preaches, and reenacts the milestones of the Story. Through her Gospel and baptism, the Church shares the Story with the lost. When new converts repent and believe in Jesus, they are incorporated into God’s great family, a community where these new believers learn the rules of our faith and walk in the ways of the Nazarene. In their repentance and baptism they embrace an entirely new identity as new characters in the Story of God in Jesus. To join the family is simultaneously to embrace the Story.
~ Davis, Don, The Most Amazing Story Ever Told. TUMI Press, Wichita, KS, 2011. Amazon Electronic Edition, 2020, Location 82
On Eagles Wings Prayer Focus: A Long Time Comin‘
Arrival: The Birth of Christ, Matt. 1:18-25
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