Do you enjoy the waiting room? I’ve had a lot of experience in waiting rooms throughout the years. As nice and comfortable as hospitals and doctors’ offices attempt to make them, I don’t know of anyone who really looks forward to sitting in a waiting room. It is always a place filled with anticipation. Whether you are the person waiting to be called back, or the person waiting for news from a doctor or surgeon on how things are going, how much longer its going to take, and finally what the results were, there is anticipation. So you find people staring at those TV screens with color-coded names and numbers, times and locations, all wondering the same things, “How much longer? How is this going to turn out?” But the wait is certainly worth it when you finally receive the news that everything went just as they had planned and the outcome was exactly what they were hoping for. What a relief. The wait is over and the outcome was good.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could know that the outcome was going to be good WHILE you were sitting in the waiting room? It might not necessarily make the waiting easier, but I think that it would certainly make it more bearable, knowing that the wait was going to be worth it. That’s actually what God does for his people in this life. You might picture our lives in this world like sitting in a waiting room. And at some point the wait is going to be over and our lives will to come to an end. But the Lord has already come out and told us what the outcome is going to be. The outcome might be summarized with a single word, “Glorious.” Glorious is what you can expect.
That’s a little different than life in this waiting room of a world. Don’t get me wrong. It can be comfortable and enjoyable at times. God gives us lots of really good things to experience and to do and to see. But if we’re honest with ourselves, I don’t think that we would necessarily call this life glorious. No one has ever said to me when I asked them how they’re doing, “Glorious.” Instead, did you notice the word that the Apostle Paul uses to describe life for the Christian? In Romans 8:18 he says, “I consider that our present sufferings…” (Romans 8:18). “Sufferings” is the word used to describe the Christian in this life. But the suffering that Paul is refereeing to here is not the suffering that comes from disease or loss or those type of things. In this section he is specifically talking about the suffering that comes into our lives as a result of living our Christians lives, battling against our sinful natures and standing up to the devil’s temptations. That’s hard. You think about the temptations that we face and how hard it can be do the things that God wants us to do. It’s hard to daily fight the selfish impulses of our sinful natures, being more concerned about winning the argument and proving that we’re right, than patiently listening and learning. It is a struggle to follow God’s design when it comes to human sexuality and marriage, especially in a world that sees very little use for what God says, even going so far as to claim that God’s design is not only restrictive, but unreasonable. It’s hard to trust the Lord’s promises that he is going to use all things for your good when your world seems to be crashing down all around you, the loss of a loved one, a marriage on the rocks, children who should know better than what they’re doing,
Yes, there is plenty of suffering and struggling for the Christian in this life. And sometimes the “glorious” that God promises seems so very, very far away. We might even begin to wonder if the wait, the struggles and the sufferings are worth it. Maybe we even wonder if the glorious is really waiting for us at the end of all this suffering.
That’s when we need to read the rest of verse 18, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). There is nothing uncertain about the outcome. There is no, “the glory that might/maybe/probably/possibly could be revealed in us.” No! The result is absolutely certain. “The glory that WILL be revealed in us.” In fact, this glorious result was certain even BEFORE you began waiting for it. That would be like getting a letter in the mail from a doctor with the results of a surgery BEFORE you even knew that you were going to be having surgery. That would certainly make the waiting room experience a little different. Yes, you’d still have to sit in the waiting room, but you could do so with the confidence of knowing how it was going to turn out.
That’s exactly what the Lord has done for you and all of his people. In verse 29 and 30 we’re told, “For those who God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” (Romans 8:29,30). From eternity, before the creation of the world, God saw you sitting in the glory of heaven along side of him. The word that the Bible uses to describe that choice is “predestined.” God predestined you and every one of your fellow Christians for a glorious life in heaven.
But he also knew that in order for that take place, something needed to change. You needed to change. You needed to be made ready for heaven. In order to live with a perfect God in his holy home of heaven, then we need to be perfect. Well, as hard as we might try, that is not a change that we can bring about ourselves. As hard as we fight and as much as we struggle, we still regularly lose those battles against our sinful natures and fall for the temptations of the devil.
But did you notice who is doing the changing? “he also predestined us to BE conformed” (Romans 8:29). This is not a change that is brought about by us. This is a change that God has brought about. God has changed us. God has changed us to look like who? “to be conformed in the likeness of his Son” (Romans 8:29). In God’s eyes we look just like Jesus. That is the change that took place when God “called” us to faith in Jesus. When the Holy Spirit brought us to faith, he put on us the perfection of Jesus. It’s like one of those little kid snow suits that when you put the child inside all you can see is their face poking out because they are completely covered from head to toe. We have been given Jesus’ perfect life to wear as our very own, covered in the perfection of Jesus from head to toe. When God looks at you he sees a perfect person who is ready for heaven. He sees someone who is “justified.” Remember what that word means? That is that beautifully powerful word that we looked at last week and that is used 14 times in this book of the Bible alone. Because Jesus has taken the punishment of our sin, we are justified, declared, “Not guilty” of our sin.
When God looks at you, he sees a saint, someone who is perfect, holy, free from the stain of sin. And that can only mean one thing for you. The same thing that happened to Jesus will happen to you. Go back to verse 29 one more time, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters” (Romans 8:29). Just as Jesus’ death was immediately followed by a glorious life free from the suffering and struggles of this sinful world, so the same will happen to you because through faith, you look just like Jesus – perfect and holy. Through death, God will rescue you from this sinful world, to the glorious life of heaven, a life that is free from all sufferings and every single struggle. No more disappointments, doubts or doctor’s appointments. No more hospice, heart repairs, cancer treatments, hip and knee replacements, dialysis or disease, foggy memories or fighting addictions. No more sinful nature to daily struggle against, temptations to hurdle or guilt to carry. No. All of that will be over and gone. Only the glorious. The glory that God foreknew and predestined you for. The glory that God conformed you for when he called you to faith in Jesus and justified you. The glory that God already sees you experiencing as he looks into the future and says about you right now, “glorified.”
I told the confirmation kids this week that this weekend is my favorite Sunday of the entire year. They asked why and I said, “It’s saints triumphant Sunday.” And they said, “What’s that?” I simply said, it’s about heaven. It’s easy while sitting in the waiting room of this world to lose sight of what we’re waiting for, to focus on the suffering and the struggles of this life that we forget what is waiting for us. It’s good for us to pause and think about that glorious life of heaven. We thank God for our fellow Christians for whom the wait is over, who are right now experiencing the glorious that we look forward to sharing with them for eternity. We thank God that he has already sent us the “results”, shown us the truly glorious outcome of all this waiting, which strengthens us in our struggles and our sufferings. For it is the glorious that God guarantees is waiting for his people that allows us to say along with Paul, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). Yes, the wait is worth it. Amen.
