Go Make Disciples: Accomplishing His Work – What’s My Purpose
Go Make Disciples: Accomplishing His Work
Together Church | Pastor Brandon Werner
January 25, 2026 | Series: What’s Your Purpose
INTRODUCTION
We’re in our third and final week of this short series called What’s My Purpose.
We started this series by looking at WHAT God’s purpose is:
God’s purpose for your life is to reproduce His glory, so the whole earth is full of His glory.
Then we looked at HOW God fulfills His purpose in our lives…
To help us fulfill God’s purpose, God has given us…
- His Spirit
- His Word (with His commands)
- His Church (to disciple us)
- Opportunities to suffer
God is constantly working all four of these things together in our lives to fulfill His purpose in and through us.
This week, we’re going to zoom in on the third point from last week’s message. Today, we are going to talk about the work Jesus accomplished – which is also the work He has give us to do – to glorify His Father on the earth.
BODY
If I were to ask you what Jesus’ primary mission was, what would you say?
Many would answer that Jesus’ primary mission was to die on the cross for our sins.
That’s honestly a good thought; and certainly, Jesus brought glory to the Father through His obedience on the cross.
But while that is a good thought, that’s not what Jesus Himself said about the work He did to glorify the Father.
In John 17, on the night He was to be betrayed, just before He was handed over to be crucified, Jesus spoke these words in prayer with His eleven remaining apostles…
John 17:1b-5
[Jesus] lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
There are at least a couple worthwhile things to really pay attention to in this passage…
- First, notice that Jesus talks about God being glorified FIVE TIMES in these five verses.
Jesus really understood God’s purpose for His life!
Have you ever considered that God’s purpose for Jesus is the same as His purpose for you?
When Jesus took on human flesh, He didn’t just take on our form and likeness… He also took up our purpose!
He did not come as a man with His own purpose; He came to be the only man who has ever perfectly fulfilled God’s purpose for mankind.
Jesus is God’s perfect example of how the glory of God is to be reproduced in our lives.
And everything Jesus did revolved around that purpose:
- Jesus came to this earth and lived a sinless life so that the glory of God would be reproduced through Him.
- Jesus died on the cross so God’s glory would be reproduced through Him.
- Jesus rose from the dead so that God’s glory would be reproduced through Him.
- Jesus ascended to heaven and sent His Spirit so that God’s glory would be reproduced through Him.
Jesus came to be the One who fulfilled the purpose of God to perfection! And He came to make a way for the glory of God to be reproduced in and through us.
Now…
To fulfill that purpose, Jesus said He performed a specific “work” that the Father had given Him to do.
He said that in verse four…
John 17:4
I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
Notice something very important…
When Jesus said he had already accomplished the “work” the Father had given Him to do, He had not yet gone to the cross to die for our sins!
So when Jesus said, “I have glorified you on the earth” and “I have accomplished the work you gave me to do,” He couldn’t have been talking about dying for our sins on the cross… He had not completed that work yet!
If dying on the cross was not the work Jesus accomplished to glorify His Father on the earth, then what was the work?
The work Jesus accomplished to glorify the Father was the work of making disciples!
We know this is exactly what Jesus was talking about because of the context: who He was praying with and what He prayed. Listen to how Jesus’ continues this prayer in the very next verses…
John 17:6-8
6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.
Jesus’ disciples, and especially His apostles, were the “people” the Father had given Him out of the world.
Through discipleship, His Word was being “kept” in His disciples.
Through discipleship, Jesus’ disciples had come to believe the truth that Jesus had come from the Father: they believed that Jesus was who He said He was and that He was sent by His Father in heaven.
The work Jesus accomplished to glorify His Father on the earth was the work of making disciples.
So here are the two things that come out of this passage:
- Jesus understood His purpose: God’s glory being reproduced through Him
- Jesus understood that the work the Father had given Him to accomplish that purpose was the work of making disciples
And Jesus is the PERFECT EXAMPLE to us of what it looks like for God’s purpose to be carried out to perfection in our life.
This exegesis of John 17 has an obvious conclusion:
The primary work God has given us to reproduce His glory on the earth is the work of making disciples of Jesus!
That understanding should produce in us a great attraction to disciple-making…
- It should draw our hearts and focus
- It should cause us to want to put in the work to become great disciple-makers
- It should lead us to adjust our lives around discipleship so that we can be like Jesus and accomplish the work that brings the most glory to God on the earth
- This truth should make us obsessed with examining Jesus and following His example as the greatest disciple-maker of all time
If we understand and have faith in what God’s Word reveals in John 17, it should be highly motivating to us and it should drive us to devote our lives to making disciples of Jesus!
That’s what it should produce.
But that’s not what has been characterizing the church in America.
In America, we often tend to be enamored by lesser things that we elevate to higher status.
Instead of the work Jesus did to glorify the Father on the earth being most attractive and our greatest ambition, we substitute that supreme work for lesser things… many of which don’t even appear in the pages of scripture!
In the American church, Christians are often drawn to…
- Attractive children’s ministries
- Exciting worship music
- New programs and ministries
- Beautiful campuses and nice buildings
- Special events that are appealing to us
None of these things are evil. In fact, they can all be unique assignments that serve our greater purpose and create opportunities for us to accomplish the work of making disciples.
But these works were never meant to be most attractive to us. They were never intended to replace the work that Jesus accomplished to show us how to glorify God on the earth.
A church cannot be spiritually healthy when something that is secondary (at best) takes the place of what is primary.
If God’s purpose is going to be fulfilled in us, we must embrace God’s strategy by devoting ourselves to the primary work He has given us to do: making disciples.
What does it look like when a church embraces the work Jesus accomplished to fulfill God’s purpose as the primary engine that drives the church?
To answer that question, we must, once again, turn our attention to Jesus. We must be enamored by His brilliance, drawn to His example, and committed to imitate Him.
How did Jesus approach disciple-making?
When Jesus made disciples, He did so with a complete understanding of the human condition and God’s design.
Jesus knew that God created every person with a deep need for relationship.
We started this short series in Genesis. Let’s return to our origins as we bring this series home.
Let me ask you a fundamental question…
What is the first human crisis in the world?
Many would say, “It is when Adam and Eve fell into sin.”
Again, another excellent thought. Certainly, sin is the greatest human crisis in the world.
But sin is not the first human crisis recorded in scripture.
The first human crisis happened before sin ever entered the world: it was not a sin crisis, it was a relationship crisis.
When God made humankind, He made us with a deep need for relationship: relationship with God AND relationship with one another.
Our relationship with God is obvious. Inside all of us is a God-sized hole that only He can fill. We can never be relationally satisfied if we are relationally separated from our Creator.
But our need for relationship with God is not our only relational need; and Jesus understood this truth.
When God made us, He also created us with a need for relationship with one another; a need made obvious in the first human crisis.
You remember the story:
- Through each stage of His creation, God looked at what He had made and saw that “it was good”.
- After God created the first man, God looked at what He had made and saw that “it was VERY good”.
- God commanded the man to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth, and to subdue it (which means to rule over it)
Then God rested.
After that, God gave the man a special assignment…
name the animals.
This assignment had a purpose.
As Adam named the animals, each came up to him; two by two.
Each animal had a male and a female.
One after their own kind.
Adam couldn’t miss it. Genesis 2:20 says, “But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.”
What was God doing?
Through this assignment, God was helping Adam become aware of his own need. God stated His purpose for this assignment in this statement…
Genesis 2:18
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
When God said, “it is not good that man should be alone” He could not have been talking about man’s relationship with God. God and Adam had a perfect relationship that was not yet severed by sin.
God was revealing to mankind our need for relationship…
Not just with God, but with one another!
We were made for right relationship with God and with other people.
When Jesus made disciples, He did the work with full understanding of this fundamental aspect of the human condition.
He knew that it was not good for man to be alone.
He knew that God created us with a need for human relationship.
So, when Jesus made disciples, He put relationship at the center.
At Together Church, we’ve called it “Relational Discipleship”. That’s just a term we’ve used to describe how Jesus made disciples.
You know…
Jesus’ primary strategy for making disciples could have been many things that it was not. After all, Jesus had more power, ability, resources, and competency than any person whose ever lived.
His strategy to make disciples could have been:
- Building large buildings and preaching to the crowds regularly
- Launching impressive programs that offered various services to people
- Starting an itinerant preaching ministry (multiply boats)
- Establishing large institutions for higher level learning
- Putting together musical groups and hosting concerts
But none of those things were Jesus’ strategy for making disciples.
Jesus decided that the most important work He could do is build a closer relationship with a small group of 12 men who were overlooked by society and disciple them into spiritual maturity.
The most important person in the world decided that was the most important thing He could do with His life!
- Jesus disciples were a bunch of rag-tag fishermen, tax collectors, and societal outcasts.
- Mark 3 says Jesus selected them “so that they might be with Him” – He called them into relationship.
- Jesus spent the approx. three years of His ministry doing EVERYTHING with these men…
- They ate together
- Worked together
- Ministered together
- Struggled together
- Traveled together
- Served together
- Talked together
- Learned together
For Jesus, the foundation for disciple-making was the genuine, personal love He had for His disciples and the relationship they shared together.
Jesus wasn’t enamored by the possibilities of launching new programs, firing up new ministries, or building impressive structures…
When it came to the work of making disciples, Jesus was interested in the kind of relationship He shared with His disciples, the lessons they learned together, and the example He gave them to follow.
There’s one occasion where this relational environment Jesus shared with His disciples really stands out.
After several months of ministry, Jesus took a retreat to Caesarea Philippi with his small group of disciples (Matthew 16).
On that retreat, Jesus asked them a question:
“Who do people say that I am?”
They answered:
“Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, some say Jeremiah, and others say you are one of the prophets.”
Then Jesus asked:
“But who do you say that I am?”
Peter spoke up. He said:
“You are the Christ! The Son of the living God!”
Do you hear the dialog and relationship they were sharing as they spent time together?
To Peter, Jesus answered:
“Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven has revealed it to you!”
What Jesus said next is the FIRST TIME the word “church” is ever used in the Bible. It is a predictive prophecy about what Jesus was going to do.
Jesus said:
“I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
Here, Jesus made a promise about the future of His Church and how it would be built.
Jesus said, “I will build MY CHURCH”!
Jesus said HE is the one who builds HIS CHURCH… and He promised His Church would WIN! (He said, “The gates of hell will not prevail against it.”)
It is possible to gather large groups of people together for a service with religious components and to not be Jesus’ Church.
It is possible to construct buildings and hang a sign up that says “church” on it and to not be Jesus’ Church.
It is possible to have programs, ministries, and outreaches that are highly engaging and to not be Jesus’ Church.
For our church to win, it cannot be about it being your church or my church… we must be HIS CHURCH.
To be His Church means that His Way is our way; His strategy is our strategy; His example is what we follow… and His great work our great work.
In the New Testament, followers of Jesus are called:
- Christians (little Christs or followers of Christ)
- People of “The Way” (Who’s way? His way!)
- Disciples
A disciple is someone who is following Jesus, being changed by Jesus, and living committed to the mission of Jesus.
To be His Church, it can’t be about us, and it can’t be about what our culture says is attractive.
If we are going to win, we must be HIS CHURCH, and being His Church means we lay down our lives and follow Him.
CONCLUSION
God has given us everything we need for His purpose to be fulfilled in us. That includes discipleship through His Church so that we can become disciples of Jesus who glorify God on the earth by doing His work and make more disciples of Jesus.
But here’s what I perceive the greatest challenge is for Christians in America when it comes to aligning ourselves with God’s purpose and doing the work He has called us to do…
We allow other things to enamor us besides Jesus.
We let other things capture our attention and our affections. We turn to other ideas and examples to follow besides His example. We drift from His method and His design.
Along the way, many have bought into the lie that the church can divorce the MESSAGE of Jesus from the METHOD of Jesus and still get His results.
Jesus is the greatest disciple-maker there has ever been.
When we abandon His strategy for something else, we are exchanging the most important work we can do to glorify God for lesser things.
What the American church needs is to be enamored by Jesus once again. We need to reexamine what is most attractive to us. We need to believe that Jesus wouldn’t have wasted His time doing a lesser work… He spent His life doing the work that glorifies God the most.
That change we need is not going to happen without men and women of deep conviction rising up. People of purpose who understand God’s design, who He has made them to be, and what He has called them to do. People who are devoted to studying Jesus’ strategy for making disciples and who will devote their lives to following His example.
The most satisfying thing we can do with our lives is to fulfill our purpose and to see God’s glory be reproduced through us as we do His work to go make disciples.
I’ve been in ministry working on staff for our church for over 20 years.
In that time, I’ve done a lot of stuff: ran a lot of programs, served in a lot of different roles and capacities, and led a lot of ministries.
I’ve been a husband, a father, a brother, a son, and a friend.
I’ve preached a lot of sermons, put on a lot of events, led a lot of small groups, and led people to sing a lot of worship songs.
I’ve invested in a lot of education, spent a lot of hours in study, and attended theology school to study the Bible for eight years.
Of all the things I’ve done, and all the ways I’ve invested my life, the most significant and satisfying thing I have ever done is follow the example of Jesus to fulfill His work through relational discipleship.
- The most significant thing in my marriage is the discipleship relationship I’ve shared with my wife and the ways God has used us to work together to make disciples.
- The most significant part of parenting has been relational discipleship with my children and watching God’s glory be reproduced through them.
- The most significant thing that’s happened in ministry in our church and our investment in small group is watching new disciple-makers grow in spiritual maturity to the point where they go out and make disciples who make disciples.
Any unique assignment we’ve accepted, special project we’ve worked on, or opportunity we’ve taken has ultimately been satisfying or unsatisfying based on how well it fueled the work of Jesus to make disciples and reproduce God’s glory.
That’s the truth.
That’s my conviction.
And it comes from Jesus’ example.
If Jesus considered this work the most important way He could glorify His Father on the earth, why wouldn’t I consider disciple-making to be the most significant, most glorifying thing I could do to fulfill God’s purpose for my life?
Because of this conviction, as Senior Pastor, I won’t stop making disciples.
- I won’t arrive at a point where I let others lead the groups and stop having one of my own.
- I won’t “move on” from that “frontline” job and “up” to “more important things”.
I believe Jesus set the right example.
This is my conviction.
And what we need are more men and women of conviction.
Disciples of Jesus who will rise up and devote their lives to God’s most important work.
Making disciples like Jesus did isn’t a calling for a few in the church…
It is the primary work God has given us all to do.
And God doesn’t leave the strategy for disciple-making up to us. Jesus set the example of relational discipleship for us to follow.
Is today your day of conviction?
Will you decide right now to center your life on the work of Christ and glorify God on the earth by becoming a great disciple-maker?
As Christians, if we are going to become great at any one thing, shouldn’t we become great disciple-makers?
INVITATION
I want to invite you to respond to this message…
FIRST…
Do you share Jesus’ conviction to accomplish the work He has given us to make disciples?
It must start right there.
Disciple-making can’t be “another program or opportunity to serve” in the church in your mind. It must be the most important work. Every other work must be seen as an opportunity to accomplish this great work. Other ideas must be judged based on whether or not they help you effectively carry out the task of making disciples.
Your conviction must come from looking at Jesus and believing that, if the Son of God considered this work worthy of His life, it is not too low a calling for you.
Do you have this conviction?
Once you have this conviction, there are a few practical things you need to do…
- Join a small group with a disciple-making purpose.
Churches form small groups for lots of reasons…
The purpose of Jesus’ small group was disciple-making.
- Join a church that is committed to equipping you for this work.
Once this conviction is in you, it changes you and your perspective and you can’t go back anymore.
You can’t go back to secondary things being primary.
You can’t go back to being satisfied by weekend services and elegant programs that are ineffective in making disciples.
You can’t go back to Bible studies and Sunday schools that are surfacy and don’t reflect the relational discipleship Jesus modeled for us.
God gave us His Church to disciple us into spiritual maturity and to help us fulfill His purpose by equipping us to do the primary work God has give us to do.
But trying to make disciples in a church that doesn’t value it as God’s most important work is like trying to swim against the current; you can put in the effort, but you make much less progress.
Turn and swim with the flow. Find a church where the leaders are committed to equipping God’s people for this work and where the people are working together to carry out the Great Commission.
- Identify and follow the right examples.
If you want to become an expert in anything, find other experts and learn from the best.
Great realtors learn from great relators.
Great leaders learn from great leaders.
Great insurance agents learn from great insurance agents.
Great lawyers learn from great lawyers.
Great parents and spouses learn from great parents and spouses.
Great disciple-makers learn from great disciple-makers.
Jesus is the greatest disciple-maker who ever lived…
So our walk with Him and our attraction to His example comes first.
But there are those in the church who have grown in this. They are further along in effectively carrying out the work than you.
Paul said, “Become imitators of me as I am of Christ.”
To grow in this work, identify and follow the right examples.
CLOSER:
To glorify the Father, Jesus accomplished the work of making disciples.
If we are going to fulfill God’s purpose of reproducing His glory, we must agree with Jesus and devote ourselves to the primary work of being His disciples who make more disciples of Him.