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Romans 9-16

The Beginning of God's Will

Roy Townsend · Sunday, 19 October 2025 · Romans 12:1-2 · 34:58 · 4,896 words

Romans S26 · 12:1-2

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The sermon examines Romans 12:1-2, urging listeners to present their bodies as living sacrifices and to reject conformity to the world. It explains that true transformation happens through renewing the mind with Scripture, prayer, and community, which equips believers to test and discern God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will. The speaker calls on followers to serve as Christ’s ambassadors, sharing the gospel and caring for one another. The message asks each person to surrender daily life to God and actively pursue growth in faith.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

conform 20 present 20 acceptable 12 appeal 12 body 25 wooden 5 boat 8 discern 7 wood 6 urge 6 bought 7 live 39

Topics

Sanctification 5 The Holy Spirit 3 Prayer 3 Sin 3 Atonement & Sacrifice 2 The Wrath of God 1 Faith 1

Scripture referenced 15

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 12 0:53 Romans 12 3:54 Romans 12 4:17 Romans 12:1-2 4:17 Romans 12 4:57 Romans 12 5:03 Romans 12 5:57 Romans 12:1 5:58 Romans 6:13 8:41 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 11:37 Ephesians 2:1-3 17:02 Luke 24:46-48 18:36 Romans 6:2 21:12 Romans 12:2 21:14 Romans 12:2 21:14

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

Pre-service announcement — 7 lines, 0:38. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

Hey everyone, my name is Joel Radecki and thanks for checking out one of our sermons today.

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Thanks again for joining us and we hope you are blessed by today's message.

Good morning. My name is Roy Townsend. I'm the grow pastor at the River Church.

We're super excited that you joined us today.

Super excited to be teaching from the book of Romans.

So if you are new or just joining us for the first time, please turn to Romans chapter 12.

But the Romans takes a major turn.

If you have been with us for the first 11 chapters,

we have had a lot of theology and then in the last three chapters,

you know, talking about Israel's previous state and their present state and their future state.

There was a lot of heavy topics and the scripture here takes a huge turn to helping us know how we can live a transformed life.

The questions become much more about what we should be doing every day as a follower of Jesus Christ.

We're going to hear about what we should do with other believers,

what we should do toward our community,

what we should do toward our enemies.

That's a hard one, guys.

It's really hard what the scripture tells us to do,

what we should do toward government,

what we should do with our weaker brothers and sisters.

And so this section of scripture was really introduced to me by a gentleman who talked to me about the will of God.

And so the question came up,

if I were to tell you that I know God's will for your life,

what would you think?

When I was graduating high school,

I had a gentleman,

a pastor come up to me.

He said,

I know God's will for your life.

And I was really excited because I had no clue what God's will was for my life.

I had no idea,

right?

I was just graduating high school.

I had a steady girlfriend.

She wanted to get married.

I got accepted to four or five decent colleges.

What major am I going to declare when I get to that college?

What am I going to do with the rest of my life?

Right?

We were thinking,

I was thinking these huge questions.

What is God's will for my life?

So I made an appointment.

I sat down with this pastor and he basically said,

I think God's will is for you to go to this school and God's will is for you to be a pastor.

So the school he wanted me to go to now.

No.

So I guess one out of two ain't bad,

right?

50% F.

I guess it's not bad,

but it was interesting.

He told all the guys that he wanted him to be pastors.

He was filling his pastor quota,

you know,

right?

He,

he wanted this school because,

because that's where he had gone to school.

He probably hadn't given much thought to God's will for my life.

And so I go around really hurt by this.

And then at the river church,

one time we were talking and he looked at me and he said,

would you like to know God's will for your life?

And I'm like,

Oh no,

like this guy.

I don't want him to do what the last guy did.

I don't want him to give me some trash advice,

pretending that it's God's will for my life.

And he sat me down and he opened up to me.

And so I went to Romans chapter 12 and I would tell you that my life has been

transformed in many ways by that old man,

giving me that teaching so that I knew how to correctly look at God's word to

know what it is that God is calling us to do in our lives.

But I have to admit it was a hard one at first.

I was like,

Oh no.

Romans chapter 12 verses one and two says,

I appeal to you.

Therefore brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living

Holy and acceptable to God,

which is your spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed to this world,

but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern

what is the will of God.

What is good?

What is acceptable?

What is perfect?

some of you are really disappointed with the answer of starting in Romans

right?

Because we,

we have these big questions in,

in our lives.

Well,

if you're going to take me to Romans chapter 12,

what do I do with where I go to college?

What do I do if I'm supposed to marry this person?

What do I do if,

are we supposed to snowbird and leave our family and go stay in Florida half

the year,

right?

These are big questions and they need to be brought to the Lord.

But again,

we can spend our whole lives being bound up,

worried about all those decisions and neglect what the scripture,

is telling us is the will of God.

And so there is,

those deep questions.

They should be brought before the Lord.

They should be prayed over.

They should be discussed,

but not at the expense of what the scripture is teaching us.

So let's go back.

Romans chapter 12,

verse one.

I appeal to you,

therefore brothers,

by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,

holy and acceptable to God,

which is your spiritual worship.

The apostle Paul through the Holy Spirit is asking us is urging us is appealing

to us that we consider the mercies of God in our life.

These great compassions that we receive from the Lord.

Now I hope and pray that when you look back at your life,

that you see the mercy of the Lord on your life.

And he is urging us as brothers and sisters who know the Lord.

He's appealing to us that we consider the mercy,

the mercy that the Lord has bestowed upon us.

If you can't see the mercy that God has given to us and to you in your life,

please speak to someone because it is a very scary spot that you are in because

we just took communion and communion was a time of examining ourselves.

And then we would do this to remember what the Lord has done for us.

And that is a time of remembering the great mercy,

remembering the grace that was given to us.

And so we have to be careful as we,

as we live our lives,

that we look for these mercies.

And he says that he's appealing to us.

This is serious.

This is urgent.

He's writing it in a letter and that letter is going to be read.

So this urgency,

this appealing,

this trying to get us to do this in a very public format.

And he uses the term brothers,

which includes brothers and sisters,

but it's to tell us that this is for the church.

This is for believers.

This is for followers.

We present our bodies as a living sacrifice,

a holy sacrifice,

an acceptable sacrifice.

And so, yes, this means our physical bodies.

And yes, if you study this, it means our lives.

We live our lives to be holy, to be acceptable.

This is our worship.

But many times, do we live our lives?

Romans 6, 13 reminds us, it says,

do not present.

Your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness,

but present yourselves to God

as those who have been brought from death to life.

When we look at our mercies that have been bestowed upon us,

Jesus brought us from death to life.

That's why we're being urged.

That's why he's appealing to us

to present our lives as a living sacrifice.

Now, I shared this earlier.

I'm going to share it again.

I've had a lot of men.

I would die for the Lord.

I go, yeah, but you won't live for him.

I believe you when you say you would die for the Lord.

But Paul didn't appeal to us to die for the Lord.

Some of us may be called to die for the Lord.

I'm not trying to make light of it.

But what is being taught here is that we live for the Lord

because he died for us.

We don't die for the Lord because he died for us.

We live for the Lord.

Whatever time we are given,

it's important because it demonstrates our love to him.

It demonstrates our worship of him.

It demonstrates our praise of him.

The fruit of my life should give glory to him.

The things that I have, the things that I do,

the resources that I can use.

And this seems very reasonable.

He paid the ransom for my life,

but I'm going to live life how I want to live.

He paid the debt that was against me,

but I'm going to...

You know, Roy, this seems very archaic.

It's an archaic idea that we should live for the Lord.

Like he gave us a brain.

We ought to know how to use our brain.

He gave us some training.

We ought to know how to use our training.

He gave us a vocation.

We ought to know how to use our vocation.

I appeal to you, therefore, brothers,

that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice.

I'm not saying that training is wrong.

I'm not saying your vocation is wrong.

I'm not saying any of those things are wrong in your life.

It is not what the scripture is saying.

It is reminding us of this great ability

that we have to present our bodies as a living sacrifice.

1 Corinthians 6, 18 through 20.

It'll be on the screen.

It says,

Or do you not know that your body is the temple

of the Holy Spirit within you,

whom you have from God?

You have the Spirit from God.

You are not your own,

for you were bought with a price.

So glorify God in your body.

Again, it's not just this one time in the book of Romans

that we see this.

You and I, the Holy Spirit comes to reside in us.

Listen, Old Testament Christians did not all have that.

The Spirit wasn't residing in them.

The Spirit might come for a while,

might leave for a while.

Yes, there are a few that the scripture says

had the Holy Spirit in their lives,

but it wasn't the constant that we have today

because you have been bought with a price.

I have been bought with a price.

I have been brought from death to life.

And Paul is urging me,

he is appealing to me

through the Holy Spirit

that we are to present.

It doesn't say God's going to take your life,

which is reasonable service.

We are to present our lives,

not to be used for unrighteousness,

but we have to remember that we have many, many.

I hear this all the time.

Roy, my neighbors are the best neighbors

I've ever had in my life.

And I go, do they know the Lord?

No, they're such good people.

It's hard.

The scripture says they're dead.

They do good things.

They're dead.

When we're looking at the spiritual weight

that is against them, they're dead.

We've got to get our heads wrapped around this church.

When we go out and love others and point others,

you and I were dead in our trespasses.

It's a privilege that we have now

as brothers and sisters, as his children.

It's a privilege to glorify God in our bodies.

Most of us look at it like it's such a drag.

It's not what I want to do.

It's not the plan that I have.

I've been working my whole life for this.

I urge you, therefore, brothers,

you present your body to living sacrifice.

Holy and acceptable.

Wiersbe, one of the guys that I love to study up on,

it dawned on me through studying this

that Jesus Christ himself as God

took on a body, do the Lord's will,

but his body is in heaven today.

And that he sends his spirit to us

to dwell in our bodies.

And we are called to do his work.

Through our bodies.

We're called to love one another.

We're called to lift one another up.

To care for one another.

We get to do the work.

God came and took on a body.

And that body died and was rose again.

And now is in heaven waiting for the second coming of Christ.

And he sent his spirit to us.

We get to, that spirit lives within us.

The temple of the Holy Spirit.

And now we get to do these things.

And Paul is like, hey, hey, hey.

I taught you a bunch of stuff.

Hey, I urge you.

I appeal to you to present your bodies.

Brothers and sisters, people who know the Lord.

Wiersbe put it this way.

That God's work might continue through us.

We must yield the members of the body

for the Holy Spirit to use doing God's work.

And because of this love that he had for us,

because of what he has done for us,

because he has chosen us,

because he has given the Holy Spirit to us,

we are his ambassadors.

We are his disciple makers.

We are his gospel presenters.

We are his need fillers.

You and I get to do this

because there are those here that don't know the Lord.

There are those here that are hearing my voice

that do not accept Jesus Christ as Savior.

They're not his ambassadors.

They're not disciple makers.

They're not gospel presenters.

They're spiritually dead.

Their only status is that they live in sin

and their fallen nature.

Ephesians 2, verses 1 through 3 says,

And you were dead in the trespasses and sin

in which you once walked,

following the course of this world,

following the prince of the power of the air,

the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience,

among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh,

carrying out the desires of our body and of the mind.

And we're by nature children of wrath,

but the rest of mankind.

We were bought from a price.

This said we were following the course of this world.

Then we were following the prince of the power of the air.

That is a direct reference to Satan.

The spirit that's now at work in the sons of disobedience.

That we followed the passion of our bodies,

carrying out the desires of our body and mind.

And we were children of wrath.

That's where you have been bought from.

That's where I have been bought from.

That's where I have been made alive from.

That's where you who call Christ your Savior

and believe in him,

and believe and accept you have been called from.

And he's like, because of this,

the mercies of God,

you should present your body as a living sacrifice.

Again, for those who don't know Christ as Lord,

Luke 24, verses 46 through 48.

I want to include this right here.

The verse says,

Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer

and on the third day rise from the dead,

and that repentance for the forgiveness of sin

should be proclaimed in his name,

to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things.

If you don't know what I'm talking about

when I mention knowing Jesus Christ,

accepting Jesus Christ,

being in a relationship with Jesus Christ.

If you don't know what I'm talking about

when I'm saying you were bought with a price,

we look at this and we know that Christ

suffered and died for our sins

and he was risen from the grave.

And it says here that we can partake in this

and that repentance for the forgiveness

of sin should be proclaimed.

That you and I can go before him

and we can repent of our sin.

Now I've made a lot of people mad earlier

so I can go ahead and do it again.

I run into a lot of people that ask me,

Roy, my loved one said a prayer

and now live like the devil.

And they think they're saved.

And I said, yes, for many people,

saying a prayer is where it starts.

It started with me.

Somebody said, hey, repeat this prayer

if you've come to the knowledge that you are a sinner

and I am thankful for it.

I'm thankful for that prayer.

But it is the repentance

for the forgiveness of sin.

It starts there, but there must be repentance.

A turning away.

It doesn't say perfection.

It doesn't say without sin.

But there has to be repentance.

Repent and be saved.

But so often we fall into,

well, they're really nice people.

But if you don't want to present your body

as a living sacrifice, if you resist that,

if you think that's trash,

if you don't want to follow that,

speak to someone.

Because your brothers and sisters

need to share the scripture with you.

And a deeper understanding of your walk

must be thought about.

It must be brought about.

Let's go on to verse 2.

Verse 2, Romans 12, verse 2.

Do not be conformed to this world,

but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,

that by testing you may discern

what is the will of God,

what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Now, it's interesting.

Many of us think, oh, you know, we're free.

Nothing pressuring me to conform to this world.

I had a buddy when I was in college.

He said, hey, I need some help.

I go, okay.

And he goes, I restore wooden boats.

Now, I would say I was pretty good looking back then,

but I'm sure that's not why he picked me, right?

He said, hey, I think you'll follow the instructions

that I'm giving you.

And this is actually kind of a dangerous job.

I had zero clue how to do this.

And we would go to wooden boats.

And I mean, some of these wooden boats were enormous.

People were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, wooden boats.

90 feet long, three bedrooms on a boat, a wooden boat, okay?

Built in 1910.

And we're restoring it because some of the wood is rotten.

And I'm like, yeah, that's really cool.

I would love to help you.

And we go and we get this huge piece of wood, 30 feet long.

And I'm looking, he goes, yeah,

we gotta replace this plank right here.

Now, this plank starts at the bow of the boat,

almost 100% vertical.

And within a few feet, it's twisted to a 45 degree angle.

But if you can't,

keep going back by the time that that plank ends,

it's under the boat and it's twisted completely the opposite way.

And it's one piece of wood.

And I'm like, do this, right?

And then he taught me how you do this.

And people say, well, what do you mean?

It's crazy.

The amount of glue, the amount of butt blocks,

the amount of screws, the amount of pressure,

the amount of jacks, jack stands,

all sorts of things that we are doing,

use of water, use of moisture

to take that piece of wood,

and you can only push it so far.

At some time, it has to conform.

You don't start at the other end and say,

you attach it at the front,

I'll attach it at the back.

No, you start in the front.

And you start attaching it.

And you start to conform that wood.

Oh, it's getting pretty tight here.

We better wait a second.

We gotta put some water on it.

We gotta do something to it.

We gotta put some extra screws right here.

We need a butt block.

We need to take a jack and push on it

so we can get this in the right position.

And it is amazing that you can take a piece of wood

and it doesn't break and twist it.

And it's useful.

And when I think of that word conformed,

I think, how conformed are we?

How conformed are we to our old selves?

The one that said when we were dead in sin,

the one where we were sons of Satan, basically.

How much does that conform us?

And how much does this present age conform us?

Just because we're in the church

doesn't mean that we don't struggle

with how this world conforms us.

I know some age groups are sitting here,

not me, not me.

Well, I'll start with my senior friends.

How much does Fox News, CNN News,

Headline News, ABC News, MSNBC News, CBS News,

how much does that news conform you?

Young people, how much does all your social media conform you?

Middle-aged people, how much do the things that you enjoy,

how much does the TV,

how much does the programs that you watch,

how much does Instagram, Facebook,

I know, young people, old people, right?

How much do these things,

how much does the fact that God is love,

that's true, God is love,

Yes, God is love.

God is also wrath.

God is holiness.

God is judgment.

Those are all equal attributes of God.

But when we're being pushed to conform

to the philosophy of this present age,

we're being pushed, well, God is love,

therefore you can't tell people

how they're supposed to live their life.

I'm like, I'm not,

I'm not telling them.

God is telling them.

What kind of coward would I be to read this book,

believe that I have the answer,

and not tell them?

Because you want to tell me God is love

and God is only love.

No, God is not only love.

You can't read the scripture

and come up with that conclusion.

And frequently, people say, what do you mean?

We're being conformed to this world.

It cracks me up sometimes.

People don't even know what they're supposed to hide

from me as a pastor.

They come up and they're like,

oh, would you pray for me and my girlfriend?

We're living.

We're living together

and we're hoping that we get this mortgage.

We want to buy a house.

And I'm like, oh, you made my prayer list.

You made the top of my prayer list.

It won't be praying for your mortgage.

They don't even know they're not supposed to tell me.

And then when I sit, I come alongside

and I say, hey, we want to share with you.

We love you.

We want to share with you what God's word says.

We want to make sure you're not being conformed

to this world.

They tell me, oh, can my parents come?

Because my parents are telling us not to get married.

I'm fighting the parents.

I'm fighting the parents.

Parents, we've been so conformed to this world

and we've seen so much heartache in this world

that we give our children advice contrary to scripture

because we're being conformed to this world.

There's a pressure point.

Well, I don't want to see them get divorced.

I don't want to see them get divorced either.

Well, I don't want to see their heart broken.

Well, I think it's too late for that.

If this doesn't work out, it's going to be a heartbreak.

We're already living together.

What do you mean?

The philosophy of this world.

Well, if two people love each other

and two people want to be monogamous,

it's all right.

No, it's not all right.

It's all right in marriage.

That's when it's all right.

Marriage between a man and a woman,

that's when it's all right.

Why?

This is what the scripture is calling us to.

It's telling us, don't be conformed to this world,

but be transformed by the renewal of your mind

so that you may test and discern what the will of God is,

what is good and acceptable and perfect.

We fight the old self.

We fight the new self.

We fight the present age.

We are to be transformed.

The idea behind this word transformed

is we are to continue to be transformed day after day,

more and more.

It's actually a root word for metamorphosis.

We're to be changed.

These things are coming in that are renewing our mind.

Well, what are those things?

Church, let's get real.

People tell me, Roy, I don't have enough time.

I'm just so busy.

I don't have enough time to read God's word.

I'm like, guys, you can grab your phone

and your phone can read God's word to you.

You can pick what voice you want.

You can pick what voice you want to read God's word to you.

You can pick a British voice if you want.

You can pick Australian.

I didn't know there was a difference.

Apparently, there's a difference.

You can pick an Australian voice to read it for you.

You can pick 1.0 speed.

You can pick 1.25 speed.

You can pick double speed.

You can have it connect to your car

and you get in your car and your car turns on

and it just starts reading you God's word.

No, my whole life is just so centered around my family

and my work that I don't have one minute of the day

for anything else.

Well, then something's wrong.

I don't believe you, but something's wrong.

Every study says that we're on devices multiple hours a day.

Currently, they tell me the Bible recap

that many of us are doing together is 12 minutes a day.

12 minutes a day.

And you'll finish the Bible in a year.

How do we control our thoughts

through this renewing of our mind?

How do we control the attitudes

through this renewing of our mind?

We challenge people every week,

please be in a growth community.

Please be in a growth community.

Please don't give God just the one hour.

of your life.

Please be in a growth community

so that you can study God's word

in a community of people.

That's how we renew our mind.

Seeking good counsel, godly counsel.

Prayer, praying to him.

These are how we take God's word in

and we pray over it and we pray about it

and we ask for the Holy Spirit to reveal it.

And then we go to a friend's,

hey, I'm not sure I understand this.

Do I have the correct interpretation of this?

What have you heard?

What do you know?

What have you studied?

And that's what it's about.

It's about being in this community

where we grow in God's word

and we grow in community.

Because we all know we're being called

to continue to grow in Christ's likeness

And then it goes on and it says

that we may discern the will of God.

I wanted to say to that young man,

if we were in God's word together,

we know that you're supposed to be married

before you live like a married person.

We can have God's word

that clearly tells us he created this

and he created this for this reason.

And he created this for this reason.

He created sex within that

to help them to ascertain, to know.

So we can test your idea.

We can test your idea of what you want to do

against the scripture.

And it will help us discern what is good.

That good doesn't just describe God's will.

It will help us learn what is good.

And it will help us discern

what is acceptable to the Lord.

And it will help us to be that perfect tool.

And people say perfect.

Well, of course God's will is perfect.

The connotation here from the scripture

is that the perfect tool for what is needed

for that moment in your life.

When we have this,

when our minds are being renewed

and we're resisting the conformity of this world,

we can take what's happening

and we can run it through this

and we can know that's not good.

That's not acceptable.

This is going to hurt me

from being the perfect tool,

the right tool that God has for me.

He has for me to be in his will

that we get to do these things.

But if I do this, it hinders that.

So people ask me,

so what's God's will for my life?

I appeal to you therefore, brothers,

by the mercies of God,

to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,

holy, acceptable to God,

which is your spiritual worship.

Present your body.

On this other side of that coin,

do not be conformed to this world,

but be transformed by the renewal of your mind

that by testing,

you may discern what is the will of God,

what is good,

what is acceptable and perfect.

Will you please stand as we pray?

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