God’s co:mission requires a desire to deflect the glory toward Jesus...

This week, we are looking at a miraculous story that is recorded for us in a letter in our Bible called the Book of Acts. Yesterday, we saw that two men, named Peter and John, were faced with a decision when it came to how they were going to respond to the glory they were getting. We discussed the reality that, if we are brutally honest with ourselves, our natural inclination is to be glory hogs. Our natural inclination and desire is to absorb glory, to bask in glory, to allow glory to wash over us like a refreshing shower. We love to be in the center, we love to be the focus. And we all struggle with that temptation to absorb the glory that comes from attention, applause, and affirmation that receive from others.

And because we struggle with temptation to absorb glory, we often respond to that temptation by ignoring glory. We ignore the attention; we ignore the applause; we ignore that affirmation. We then asked if ignoring glory was any better than absorbing glory. We asked if there was a third way, a right way of responding to the glory that people attempt to bring our way. Today, we will see in Peter and John’s response to the glory that they were getting a third way revealed to us. So let’s look at their response together, beginning in Acts 3:12:

But when Peter saw this, he replied to the people, "Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this, or why do you gaze at us, as if by our own power or piety we had made him walk?

In other words, Peter says “Why are you so impressed with us? Why are you staring at us? Do you think that it is because of our own charisma or capabilities that we made this man walk? Do you think that we are deserving of the glory that you are trying to give us?” Peter continues:

"The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus, the one whom you delivered and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him. "But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses. "And on the basis of faith in His name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know; and the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all. "And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also. "But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. "Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time. "Moses said, 'THE LORD GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR BRETHREN; TO HIM YOU SHALL GIVE HEED to everything He says to you. 'And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.' "And likewise, all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and his successors onward, also announced these days. "It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, 'AND IN YOUR SEED ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED.' "For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways."

Peter takes the attention and the glory that the crowds were trying to give to him and, like any good preacher, turns it into an opportunity to preach a sermon. Peter’s sermon is simple and to the point: “We do not deserve the attention or the glory that you are giving us. The reason that this man is able to walk is because of what God has done in us and through us through Jesus. It is Jesus who should get the attention and glory, because it is Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, who healed this man. Jesus should get the power and the glory because even though you refused to acknowledge that He is God-in-a-bod, who came to rescue us; even though you delivered Him over to the Romans to be killed, God proved that Jesus was who He said He was by raising Him from the dead."

"And while you were unaware that you were actually killing God who came to rescue us, we know that Jesus Christ is God and is alive because we have seen Him and we are here to testify that the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel is true. And the miraculous and unexplainable events that you have witnessed today are to show and to prove that the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel are true. This miracle was done so that Jesus would receive glory and so that you might respond to what you have seen and heard today by recognizing and feeling remorse for how you are living life so as to change the trajectory of your life that is moving away from God back towards God by believing, trusting, and following Jesus as Lord and Leader.”

And it is in this sermon by Peter that we see revealed for us a third way that we are to respond when people try to give us glory. And it is this third way that also reveals for us a timeless principle that is necessary to embrace in order to fully engage in the co:mission that we have been given by God to partner with God in a way that advances God’s kingdom mission as we reveal and reflect Christ to those around us. And that timeless principle is this: God’s co:mission requires a desire to deflect the glory toward Jesus.

You see, God’s co:mission is not a solo mission. God’s co:mission is not a mission that is focused on us absorbing that glory that rightfully belongs to God. And God’s co:mission is not about us ignoring the glory that rightfully belongs to God. Instead, God’s co:mission is all about us deflecting the glory that rightfully belongs to God as God uses us as the vehicle to reveal His Son Jesus to those around us.

And when we engage in God’s co:mission by living our lives as missionaries that genuinely and authentically follow Jesus teachings in a way that deflects the glory towards Jesus as we love and serve those around us, we will experience two potential responses. We see those responses experienced by Peter and John in the opening verses of Acts 4:

As they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to them, being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them and put them in jail until the next day, for it was already evening. But many of those who had heard the message believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.

As Peter and John continued to deflect the glory away from themselves and toward Jesus, the crowds continued to gather and grow, which caught the attention of the religious leaders of the day. Now as you might imagine, the Jewish religious leaders were not too pleased to hear Peter and John speaking about Jesus just outside the temple, as these religious leaders were the very people who had killed Jesus. The religious leaders responded by laying hands on Peter and John, which is a nice way to say that they grabbed them very aggressively and arrested them. But, in spite of the arrest of Peter and John, many people responded to what they had seen and heard by placing their confident trust in the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel by believing, trusting, and following Jesus as Lord and Leader.

You see, as is often the case, the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel are either enthusiastically embraced or they are violently opposed. Peter and John experienced both in this story. And you and I will experience both as we engage in the co:mission that we have been given. Regardless of how the response, it is important to remember that we are not responsible for the response. What we are responsible for, however, is how we live our lives as followers of Jesus and how we respond to those who would want to give us glory. Because God’s co:mission requires a desire to deflect the glory toward Jesus.

So how will you respond to those around you who desire to give you glory for what God is doing in you and through you? How will you respond to those around you who want to give you glory for all that God has given you? Will you absorb the glory? Will you ignore the glory? Or will you deflect the glory to Jesus?