What It Means to Surrender to God: Romans 12 and the Delight of Surrender
Pastor Keith Roberson is a history buff, and he made the room suffer with him for it. He started with two of the most famous surrenders in history. The first: Lord Cornwallis and the British, surrendering to what was effectively a bunch of scrappy farmers who came together and said, we will not stand for tyranny — the painting hangs in the rotunda of the Capitol building. The second: May 7th and 8th, 1945, when Nazi Germany — its cowardly leader having taken his own life a week earlier — signed an unconditional surrender to the Allied forces. Beaten. Outmatched. Finished.
Then he brought it closer to home. As a kid, he was two years older than his brother, and when they wrestled he would put the whoop on him and make him say “who’s your daddy?” Years later he had sons of his own, and when they came at him with all their young-man moxie, he would pin their arms back, tickle them to their ever-loving fright, and make them say the same thing. (His oldest is eighteen now and much stronger, so these days Keith keeps it chill.)
And then the question that drives the whole sermon: when we sing I Surrender All — is that what we mean? Surrender like a defeated German commander, like a little kid who’s been completely overpowered? Humiliated into giving up?
In a message from the THEREFORE series called The Delight of Surrender, Pastor Keith walked through Romans 11 and 12 and James 1 to answer a question underneath all of it: what does it actually mean to surrender to God?
What this sermon is about
There are two kinds of surrender. One happens because you’re defeated — conquered, overtaken, outmatched. The other happens because you’re convinced. The Bible’s call to surrender is the second kind: gladly giving yourself over to what is true, the way you give yourself over to anything you’ve discovered is too good to keep at arm’s length. Surrender, in Scripture, is not humiliation. It’s the doorway to transformation — and it’s a delight.
If “surrender” has always sounded to you like losing, this message reframes the whole word.
Two kinds of surrender
Pastor Keith’s picture for the second kind of surrender is wonderfully ordinary. It’s the friend who grabs you and says, have you ever had barbecue from Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Texas? You have to try it — this barbecue will change your life. Or the friend with the book, or the movie, or the place: you don’t have a choice, you have to go. And you say, okay, I’ll go. You put the brisket in your mouth, you finally read the novel, and it does something to you. You give yourself over. That’s the surrender the Bible talks about.
“There’s a kind of surrender where you gladly give yourself over to what is true. When you find what is true, it is the delight of your life — and you fully, gladly, not in shame and humiliation but in delight, pass your heart and life over.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
There was something we had with God in the garden, and it was greater than any book or food or movie. We had it, and it was lost. Jesus came back to eradicate sin and open the door: if you’ll give yourself to this, you could have it again. You could come back to what was lost. Will you surrender? Will you taste?
Sometimes that transformation is at the root level — slow, cellular, invisible work where God is reorienting and rewiring things, rewriting your entire story. (Pastor Keith pointed back to the previous week’s message on exactly that kind of unseen, root-deep change.) Sometimes it’s outward fruit. And sometimes it’s in an instant, because our God is miraculous. But either way, here’s what we can’t get away from: when you are in Christ, you are changed. There’s no signing up for fire insurance. When you say yes to the living King, your life becomes different — in Him first, and then outwardly as His Spirit does His work.
Undone by an unsearchable God
Then the sermon went to Romans — written by Paul, the man who hated Jesus, hated His followers, and sought to eradicate everyone who talked about Him, until he was transformed and sent to the ends of the earth he knew. Toward the end of the letter, in chapters 9 through 11, Paul is describing mysteries you can’t fully get your head around this side of heaven — God’s sovereign power to ransom Jews and Gentiles to Himself, to take sick and broken and wounded people and restore them. You rarely read those chapters and come away saying “I understand it all.” You more often come away saying, that hurts my brain — I’m going to read it again.
And when Paul reaches the end of it, he doesn’t summarize. He erupts.
Romans 11:33-36 — “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”
Paul is undone — fascinated with a glorious God who is far beyond what we could comprehend. And Pastor Keith camped on that word unsearchable: it means you will never get to the bottom. You can keep drinking and going deeper and you will never get to the end of Him.
“I actually think that’s the point of eternity — it will take an eternity to try to get to the bottom of God, to just be undone over and over and over.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
Everybody pictures eternity like a 10,000-hour worship service, he joked. It’s actually the opportunity to be doubled over in delight, searching out the glory of this God. And Paul’s point is: don’t wait until then. Get it now.
Therefore, present your bodies
Because right after the doxology comes the “therefore” — the hinge this whole series is built on.
Romans 12:1-2 — “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. 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.”
In light of who this unsearchable, glorious God is — surrender everything you’ve got. Your body, your mind, everything in you. Not because you’ve been browbeaten, but because what He offers is far beyond anything you could craft or create for yourself, and far beyond anything the world has to offer.
Pastor Keith reached for the old C.S. Lewis line to get our heads around it: it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us — like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
“If you’ve ever had the Scripture declared to you like ‘you better worship God — hunker down, grit your teeth, and give yourself over’ — that’s not what the Bible is saying. The Bible is saying he’s so great and so big, if you were to let your heart and mind go there, you will be transformed.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
That’s the renewing of the mind: a different way of thinking about everything around you, instead of being conformed to the way the world thinks — which is so enticing, because going with the flow always is. The offer on the table is to wake up on a Tuesday and be handed a brand new view of Him and of who you are in Him. If you’re sitting in shame and guilt, you can be restored and redeemed as a son or a daughter of the Most High God. If you’re crippled under painful addiction, you can hand it over and let Him speak what He says over you. Will you trust that His ways are better than what you see with your eyes and hear with your ears? That’s where transformation happens.
Receive the word, then do it
Pastor Keith closed with James — the brother of Jesus, saying the exact same thing.
James 1:17-22 — “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change… Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”
God isn’t wishy-washy, Keith said. He’s not up there wondering what to do next. He’s a good Father giving every good gift. And therefore — there’s that word again — put away what the world wants to dabble in, and receive. That’s the surrender: receive His words so you can do His words. Every ounce of obedience God is calling you to, every mountain that feels uncrossable, the forgiveness He’s asking you to walk in, the besetting sin that’s strangling you — you can hand those over to a good Father who will receive you, cover you, restore you, and redeem you.
“You don’t wake up tomorrow morning with a ten-ton weight on your shoulders. You wake up in the presence of the One who has chosen to make his home inside of you.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
And then the sermon did something unusual. No three points to fix what needs fixing in you. As Keith put it, I have no points — it’s just one truth. Surrender. Turn your hand over and say: I’m not God, and You are, and You’re glorious. Here are my fears today. Here is my hurt. Here is my sadness, my hopes, my needs. You get it all.
He gave the room twenty seconds to bring one thing — just one, though all of us could name twenty — and hand it over. Not like a defeated warlord. Like a son or a daughter being offered a holiday at sea.
What this means for your week in Franklin
If you take this sermon seriously, four things change about this week.
- Name your one thing. A fear, a worry, a dormant hope, a numb place, a sin. Don’t try to surrender all twenty at once — bring the one thing, tell God about it plainly, and turn your hand over.
- Silence the other voices first. Keith was practical: stop listening to the world’s voice, the enemy’s voice, and your own running commentary — which usually means turning off the screens — and then ask, “What do You have to say, good King?” His words on a Monday morning are better than anything the news, the channel, or your own head will give you.
- Treat surrender as tasting, not gritting. If your picture of obedience is hunkering down and gritting your teeth, swap it for the brisket picture: you’re being invited to try something that will change your life. Approach one act of obedience this week with that posture.
- Receive before you do. James’s order matters — receive the implanted word with meekness, then be a doer of it. Before you attempt the hard obedience (the forgiveness, the habit, the conversation), sit long enough to actually receive what God says over you.
Watch the full message
The full sermon — “The Delight of Surrender” from the THEREFORE series — is in the video above. We post a new message every Sunday from New River Church in Franklin, TN. Browse our message library for more from the THEREFORE series and other recent teaching.
Coming Sunday at New River Church in Franklin, TN
If this message resonated and you’d like to experience worship and community in person, we’d love to have you with us. New River Church meets Sundays at 9:00 AM and 10:45 AM at 1153 Lewisburg Pike in Franklin, TN 37064 — just minutes from downtown Franklin and easy to reach from across Williamson County, Brentwood, and Spring Hill.
You don’t need to dress up. You don’t need a good voice. You don’t need to know much about church or the Bible to come. We’re a community of ordinary people walking through ordinary life, trying to do it together with Jesus at the center. Whether you’ve been a Christian for forty years or you’ve never set foot in a church, you are welcome here.
If you’re new to the area or new to faith, our First Time Guest page walks through everything you need to know before your first visit: parking, what to expect on Sunday morning, what your kids will experience in River Kids, and how to find us when you arrive.
If you’re looking for deeper community beyond Sunday morning, our Community Groups meet across Franklin and the surrounding area throughout the week. Groups are where Sunday morning faith becomes Tuesday afternoon real life.
Whatever you’re carrying right now, you don’t have to carry it alone. There’s a place for you at New River Church in Franklin, Tennessee. Come as you are.
Watch more sermons: newriverfranklin.com/messages Plan your visit: newriverfranklin.com/firsttimeguest Find a group: newriverfranklin.com/groups
📍 New River Church | 1153 Lewisburg Pike, Franklin, TN 37064 | Sundays 9:00 AM & 10:45 AM
