Good morning, everyone, and welcome.

My name is David Rice.

I'm one of the pastors here at Calvary Baptist Church, and it's a privilege to be filling in in the pulpit this morning for our senior pastor, my brother, Dr. Willie Rice, who is on his annual study break with his wife, Cheryl.

You may not know this, but every summer you give him a couple of weeks to go up into the where he seeks the Lord's face for guidance about what is to be taught from the pulpits of Calvary's congregations over the coming year.

And I'm grateful to be a part of, to have a pastor who does that, who seeks the Lord's will about how to teach us the Bible.

I'm grateful to be part of a church that encourages and allows that, and I'm certainly grateful to be the one who gets to stand here before you this morning.

Well, good morning, brothers and sisters, and welcome here to Calvary Baptist Church for our 11 o'clock worship service.

It's my privilege to be able to stand before you and open God's Word.

My name is David Rice.

I'm one of the pastors here, and I'm the brother of our senior pastor, Dr. Willie Rice.

It's my privilege to fill in for him today, for you, my beloved.

And Pastor Willie is on a much deserved well-earned vacation this week with his wife Cheryl out west touring some national parks.

good morning to you brothers and sisters my name is david rice i'm the brother of calvary's pastor thank you you shouldn't be that impressed that i know my own name but i'll take it I'm the brother of our senior pastor, Dr. Willie Rice, who is this morning preaching over at the First Baptist Church of Daytona Beach in preparation for this week's meetings of the Southern Baptist Convention.

And I hope you'll be praying for him because the Lord has placed an awful lot upon his shoulders.

You may not be familiar with this, but the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination of Christians that has ever existed in the history of the world.

with 47,000 churches in the United States and more than 12 million members between them.

If that number doesn't sound impressive to you, let me put it in perspective.

If you add up the total number of Subway restaurants, I'm not done yet.