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 Messiah in Gethsemane: The Kingdom’s Submission, Mark 14:32-42; Hebrews 5:7-10
The bloodstream of the Kingdom of God is His subjects’ submission to the Father (i.e., “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done”). It is modeled after the submission of the Messiah to the Father, who did not assert His own will but gladly surrendered Himself to God. Gethsemane is the garden/space where the King secured His Crown through His unconditional availability to God, and it sets the pattern by which everyone who follows Him enters and extends that Kingdom. In that fateful hour we see powerfully that truth embodied: the Son’s eternal submission to His Father, embracing human agony and prayer, perfecting obedience through His suffering that revealed Him as our Savior and Priest.
Invocation
Father, we come as those who long to honor You in Your Kingdom, yet who must first learn to kneel. Teach us the heart of the Messiah, Your Son’s own prayer, that we might give over our very wills to You, and not simply pray about our circumstances with You. Meet us in our own respective Gethsemanes and make our surrender to Your Son the very doorway we take into knowledge of Your will and Your Kingdom rule. 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.
Sunday: Mark 14.1-2, 10-26; Matt. 26.1-5, 14-30; Luke 22.1-30; John 13.1-30
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 25:1-9
Old Testament (or Acts [during Eastertide]): Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32
Gospel: Matt. 21:23-32
New Testament: Philippians 2:1-13
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 27, 57, 87, 117, 147 and Proverbs 27
The Submitted Son and the Coming Kingdom, Mark 14:32-42 (with 1 Cor. 15:24-28) and Hebrews 5:7-10
The Messiah’s surrender of His will in Gethsemane shows the eternal, loving submission of the Son to the Father, by which the Kingdom will one day be given over to God. This illustrates a fundamental principle of Kingdom life and service (Heb.5): we come to reign only as we learn to submit. In Mark 14 the Son yields His human will to the Father in the hour of trial, and in 1 Corinthians 15 that same filial submission will be the final, cosmic act by which the victorious Christ hands over the Kingdom to His Father so that God becomes all in all. In Gethsemane we see how the Kingdom will finally be revealed.
Reflection
Submission to the Father is the very grammar of the Kingdom of God, showing us the essence of its meaning and its inner life. Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, who is equal with the Father, freely yielded to Him without condition or claim. Christ submitted to His Father, and by yielding He both overcame and redeemed. As His disciples, we are called and empowered by the Holy Spirit to enter that same reality and inner movement. To surrender our will to the Father is neither defeat nor despair, but our truest participation in the life of God. Through submission, we learn to live like Jesus in the happenings of our lives each day.
Engaging God’s Word Today
Where in your life are you still surrendering only the outcome to God while quietly holding on to the process for yourself? What would it mean for you today to yield the will beneath your situation, to pray with Christ, “not what I will, but what You will?”
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
Father, I am humbled and thankful for the submission of the Lord Jesus to You in His hour of trial at Gethsemane. Equip me as His disciple to go in His strength, the One who learned obedience through His suffering and was made perfect. In the same way You heard Your Son, hear me today; form Your Kingdom life in me, my surrendered heart; and conform me to the image of Christ as I learn to daily submit to Him and to You, until God is my all in all. 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
“When the word refers to God’s Kingdom, it always refers to His reign, His rule, His sovereignty, and not to the realm in which it is exercised. Psalm 103: 19, “The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.” God’s kingdom, His malkuth, is His universal rule, His sovereignty over all the earth. Psalm 145: 11, “They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, and tell of thy power.” In the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, the two lines express the same truth. God’s Kingdom is His power. Psalm 145: 13, “Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endures throughout all generations.” The realm of God’s is the heaven and earth, but this verse has no reference to the permanence of this realm. It is God’s rule which is everlasting. Daniel 2:37, “You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory.” Notice the synonyms for kingdom: power, might, glory—all expressions of authority.
These terms identify the Kingdom as the “rule” which God has given to the king. Of Belshazzar, it was written, “God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end” (Dan. 5: 26). It is clear that the realm over which Belshazzar ruled was not destroyed. The Babylonian realm and people were not brought to an end; they were transferred to another ruler. It was the rule of the king which was terminated, and it was the rule which was given to Darius the Mede (Dan. 5: 31). . . .
The Kingdom of God is His kingship, His rule, His authority. When this is once realized, we can go through the New Testament and find passage after passage where this meaning is evident, where the Kingdom is not a realm or a people but God’s reign. Jesus said that we must “receive the kingdom of God” as little children (Mark 10:15). What is received? The Church? Heaven? What is received is God’s rule. In order to enter the future realm of the Kingdom, one must submit himself in perfect trust to God’s rule here and now.”
~ 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 180, 185, 200.
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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