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
The Last Supper: The Kingdom’s New Covenant, Mark 14:22-25; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
The Kingdom of God connects powerfully to the New Covenant promise of the Hebrew Bible, namely, that the Messiah will institute a new relationship with God not based on obedience to the Law but through the offer of grace and truth. At the Passover meal before His death, Jesus announces this connection; at the table He inaugurates the New Covenant promised in the prophets (e.g., Jeremiah 31) and ratifies it in His statement about His own body and blood. The Last Supper reveals facets of that single reality: one covenant, established in Christ, embodied in the meal, practiced by the Church, oriented to the Kingdom, and entrusted to the next generation.
Our Focus Today
The Kingdom’s New Covenant Proclaimed, 1 Corinthians 11:26
Each time the Church local gathers in assembly and eats the bread and drinks the cup it proclaims the Lord’s death till He returns. This holy act makes the Supper a living proclamation, a prophetic sermon that confesses the Gospel to the gathered congregation and bears witness to the watching world.
Invocation
Thank You, Lord Jesus, for the gift of the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, among Your people worldwide. As we come to Your Table at our gatherings, make our eating and drinking an embodiment of the Gospel, a true proclamation of Your death for us. Let this holy act preach the Gospel to our hearts with joy and reverence and also let it confess You before a watching world that God sent His Son into the world to redeem us. Fix our hope on Your promised return, that we may show Your saving love to our families, neighbors, and friends, until You come again. Amen.
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.
Thursday: Mark 12.28-44; Matt. 22.34-23.39; Luke 20.41-21.4
Psalms and Proverb for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the Psalms and Proverbs each month.
Thursday: Psalm 24, 54, 84, 114, 144 and Proverbs 24
The Kingdom’s New Covenant Proclaimed, 1 Corinthians 11:26
Each time the Church local gathers in assembly and eats the bread and drinks the cup it proclaims the Lord’s death till He returns. This holy act makes the Supper a living proclamation, a prophetic sermon that confesses the Gospel to the gathered congregation and bears witness to the watching world.
Reflection
The Lord’s Supper proclaims prophetically and powerfully the death of the Lord, His sacrifice for creation and the hope of the Kingdom come. In eating the bread and drinking from the cup, the Church preaches the crucified Christ, confessing in tangible observance the Good News of the Kingdom to her members and to the world. It is an embodied sermon, a lived performative act of faith, bounded by hope, declaring the death of the Messiah “till He come.” Let us always, then, approach the Table both as recipients and as witnesses, whose very participation announces the Gospel and awaits our returning Lord.
Engaging God’s Word Today
When I come to the Lord’s Table, do I recognize our observance together as a proclamation of the Gospel? How could our reframing the meaning of the Supper as a living sermon reshape the way I participate in it, and bear witness to those around me?
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
Heavenly Father, thank You for the gift of the Eucharist! To remember our Messiah, His sacrifice for us on the Cross, is both a wonder and a delight. Help us to observe the Table as heralds of the crucified and coming Christ, to redeem His people and to judge the world. Let the bread we break and the cup we share proclaim His death, and let our lives confess the same Gospel to those around us. By Your Spirit enable us to live in hope, witness in love, and await His return, in our deeds and words to show forth the Lord’s death until He returns to us to make all things right again. Amen.
Scripture Memory for this season
Rev. 21:1-5, Creation’s Groaning: The Kingdom’s Cosmic Scope
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” 5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
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)
• Get Your Pretense On, Dr. Don Davis (during season of Christmas)
• Destined for the Throne, Paul Billheimer (during season of Epiphany)
• The Presence of the Future, George Eldon Ladd (during seasons of Lent, Holy Week, Easter and Ascension)
• Who Gets to Narrate the World?, Robert E. Webber (during seasons of the Coming of the Holy Spirit, and Headship)
• Kingdom, Church and World: Biblical Themes for Today, Howard Snyder (during season of 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 Gospel of the Kingdom
“The Biblical idea of the Kingdom of God is deeply rooted in the Old Testament and is grounded in the confidence that there is one eternal, living God who has revealed Himself to men and who has a purpose for the human race which He has chosen to accomplish through Israel. The Biblical hope is therefore a religious hope; it is an essential element in the revealed will and the redemptive work of the living God.
Thus the prophets announced a day when men will live together in peace. God shall then “judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isa. 2: 4). Not only shall the problems of human society be solved, but the evils of man’s physical environment shall be no more. “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them” (Isa. II: 6). Peace, safety, security—all this was promised for the happy future.
Then came Jesus of Nazareth with the announcement, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4: 17). This theme of the coming of the Kingdom of God was central in His mission. His teaching was designed to show men [sic] how they might enter the Kingdom of God (Matt. 5: 20; 7: 21). His mighty works were intended to prove that the Kingdom of God had come upon them (Matt. 12: 28). His parables illustrated to His disciples the truth about the Kingdom of God (Matt. 13: II). And when He taught His followers to pray, at the heart of their petition were the words, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6: 10). On the eve of His death, He assured His disciples that He would yet share with them the happiness and the fellowship of the Kingdom (Luke 22: 22-30). And He promised that He would appear again on the earth in glory to bring the blessedness of the Kingdom to those for whom it was prepared (Matt. 25: 31, 34).”
~ Ladd, George Eldon. The Gospel of the Kingdom. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI: 2000. Electronic Edition (copyright © 1959, The Paternoster Press), Location 81.
On Eagles Wings Prayer Focus: A Long Time Comin‘
The Ascension and the Day of Pentecost: The Kingdom’s Cosmic Authority, Acts 1:6-11; 2:32-36, Eph. 1:20-23
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