Antioch Waco

Pastor Mick Murray opened our summer series through Proverbs, asking the question, "Where are we spurning wisdom today that might lead to burning the house down in the future?" Drawing from Proverbs 1:1-7, he defined wisdom as hearing God's Word and walking in His ways, a definition that finds its fullest expression in Jesus Christ, whom Paul calls "the wisdom of God."

He unpacks what wisdom is, why we need it and how we get it. As followers of Jesus, we are commissioned to bring order out of chaos in our homes, relationships and communities, and walking in God's ways tends to produce righteousness, justice and equity. He also describes how we gain wisdom through three postures: making space to hear God through His Word and Spirit, humbly seeking guidance from trusted people who bear godly fruit and cultivating the fear of the Lord.

Pastor Carl Gulley delivers a Graduation Sunday message rooted in Isaiah 55:11, reminding graduates and the church that while we do not have what it takes in our own strength, the Word of God does. Through stories of his mother faithfully praying Scripture over their family, Jesus using Scripture in the wilderness, and Jason Ramos’ testimony of transformation, Carl called believers to pray God’s Word over their lives, families, struggles, and transitions, trusting that His Word will not return empty but will accomplish His purposes.

Maddie Echols delivered a message rooted in her own profound loss of her son, Houston Blaze, who lived only 30 minutes after being born in October 2024 following a fatal in utero diagnosis. Rather than offering easy comfort, she made the case that Jesus is not a distant God but a Man of Sorrows who enters fully into our pain, and invites us to do the same through the biblical practice of lament.

Pastor Jason Ramos brought a message rooted in Ephesians 5:8 and the healing of a blind man in Mark 8, showing that in Christ we are not merely rescued from darkness but transferred into an entirely new kingdom (Colossians 1:13). Using the blind man's two-stage healing and his own testimony of freedom from addiction, Pastor Jason called us to stop tolerating the fruitless deeds of darkness and to repent and turn toward Jesus, like a GPS rerouting, away from the old voices that shaped our blindness and toward the light we are now called to be.

Pastor Jeremy King revealed that the Armor of God in Ephesians 6 is not just a metaphor but the Father's own armor, the very protection God wore when He fought for His people in Isaiah 59, now given to us as sons and daughters adopted into His family through the blood of Jesus.

Yet many believers still struggle to walk in that armor because they are still wearing the armor of their old kingdom, the kingdom of darkness. Using David's refusal of Saul's armor, we must pick up what God has anointed, repent and renounce the old patterns to walk in freedom. Whether addiction, anxiety, generational sin, unforgiveness or shame, it is Christ that has set us free from these things and accomplished what we never could on the cross.