Students entering a new season of preparation must refuse the counterfeit version of what God intends for them, said Southern Baptist Convention President Willy Rice in a chapel service at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
“Will you settle for something that is a genuine fake, or will you pursue with all of your heart that which is authentic and real and genuine?” said Rice, senior pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater, Florida, and the 66th president of the SBC.
Preaching from 1 Kings 14:21-28, Rice said students are standing where Rehoboam stood. Solomon’s son inherited the kingdom at the height of its wealth, and a transition, Rice said, is a season of both opportunity and vulnerability.
“Leadership is about choices,” he said. “And the higher the leadership, the harder the choices.”
Rehoboam made his almost immediately. Facing a revolt over taxes, he rejected the counsel of the men who had advised his father and took the advice of the friends he had grown up with. The kingdom split. When Egypt later plundered the temple and carried off Solomon’s shields of gold, Rehoboam replaced them with bronze and kept up the ceremony.
“Most people don’t notice the difference when it glitters in the sun,” Rice said. “But bronze isn’t gold.”
Rice prayed that students would be delivered from “going through the motions with a superficial spirituality designed to impress others, even while we deceive ourselves.” He drew four charges from the account: choose wisdom, choose humility, choose service, and choose God.
Wisdom is not an accumulation of knowledge, Rice said, but knowing what to do in a given moment, and one of the most consequential decisions a young leader makes is whose counsel he receives. Rehoboam’s friends “may have been in step with the times,” Rice said, “but they were out of step with the truth.”
Humility is acknowledging that there are things you do not know and cannot control, Rice said. “God’s not interested in building your platform. He’s looking for people who will build a platform for his glory.”
“I want you to have the real thing in your life,” Rice said in closing. “So I beg you, do not take the shortcuts.”
In his introduction, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler, Jr. said the appointments an SBC president makes directly affect the seminary.
Mohler mentioned he has known Rice for years and has preached at Calvary, where Bill Anderson served as pastor before him. Anderson called regularly with encouragement during Mohler’s early years as Southern’s president.
“A very faithful Christian man, a wonderful Christian pastor,” Mohler said of Rice. “His passions, his convictions, they’re all very important to us.” He thanked Rice for taking time from a demanding schedule and said the health and conviction of Rice’s ministry at Calvary is fueling his leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention.
“It’s wonderful to have such a faithful Baptist church and such a faithful Baptist pastor,” Mohler said. “It’s an honor for Southern Seminary to have the president of the Southern Baptist Convention here in our first week of chapel.”
Rice began by thanking Mohler for the introduction. “It is an extraordinary honor to be here. I’m humbled to be here,” he said. “I was a young pastor when he became the president of this seminary, and I watched from afar and prayed and admired him, and I have watched this institution be reclaimed for theological health.”
“This is the mother seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention,” Rice said. “It is unimaginable to think about the Southern Baptist Convention without thinking about this seminary.”
Rice, who was elected to the SBC presidency in June, received his bachelor’s degree from Samford University and his Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He has served as senior pastor of Calvary in Clearwater since 2004. He and his wife, Cheryl, have three grown children and eight grandchildren.
You can view Dr. Willy Rice’s sermon here.