Let's get into our study of God's Word. Today, very excited because it's our water baptism today.

And so what I'm going to do is a topical teaching instead of our teaching through the book of Ephesians,

where on Sunday mornings we're going through the book chapter by chapter and verse

by verse. So today I'm going to break from that and we're going to do a study of and I'm going to

teach on the meaning of water baptism. And more specifically, I'm hoping to answer some of the questions as it relates to what water baptism

is and also, perhaps more importantly, what water baptism is not.

So before we do that, if you would, join with me in a word of prayer, we'll ask God's

blessing on our time together today.

Loving Heavenly Father, we're so grateful to you.

Cannot thank you enough for your goodness, your mercy, your grace, your love, your kindness, your compassion. Lord, today would you as only you can and are always faithful to

minister to us in our time together in your word,

especially those who are here today and are hurting today.

Lord, would you, by the Holy Spirit, just minister comfort?

Lord, we ask you for this in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right, let's get to it.

You probably noticed we have everything set up.

This is our first time in our new church on our property that we're doing this water baptism here.

We are not going to baptize anybody in the canal.

We want to baptize you in the name of Jesus.

We don't want to baptize you so you go home to be with Jesus, if you know what I mean.

So what we're going to do is meet out on the front lawn and for those of you who are planning to be water baptized, you'll want to have an extra change of clothes and a towel as well.

And we're thinking that it will be around 2 o'clock-ish, heavy on the ish, which will be after

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