Antioch Waco

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 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.

God designed power to flow outward, lifting others rather than securing ourselves. In this message, we redefine power as influence, something every person carries in every relationship, shaping people and environments through words, presence and choices. From the Garden, where humanity was free to help others flourish, to the distortion of power through sin and insecurity, this teaching traces how God’s original design was lost and how it is restored through Christ. In Ephesians 5, we see Paul challenge cultural norms by calling for mutual submission in the home, where husbands love sacrificially, families honor one another and authority is expressed through service. This sermon invites believers to be filled with the Spirit, to use their influence as an act of worship, to steward the spaces God has given them and to pursue forgiveness and reconciliation so that their lives create environments where others can truly flourish.