Made to Reproduce – What’s My Purpose
Made to Reproduce
Together Church | Pastor Brandon Werner
January 11, 2026 | Series: What’s My Purpose?
INTRODUCTION
Today, we start a short series to begin the year called What’s My Purpose?
That’s a huge question.
And it’s one we all need answered.
Inside every person’s soul there is a deep longing for significance and purpose. Without purpose, we quickly wrestle with feelings of hopelessness, discouragement, loneliness, and insignificance.
When I am talking about your purpose, I am not talking about special assignments God calls you to uniquely.
God has made every person with unique skills, abilities, gifts, and passions. Within His design for you, God has called you to unique assignments. Those assignments could be…
- A specific career.
- A unique call in ministry.
- Leadership roles in the church.
- A specific job.
- Being a husband or a wife.
- A father or a mother.
These assignments God gives can be very meaningful to us. But these assignments find their greatest significance when they are connected to God’s ultimate purpose for our lives.
Assignments can and will change throughout the various seasons of your life. But God’s purpose for your life is what all those assignments point back to. God’s purpose for your life is not a temporary assignment: it is central.
God’s purpose for your life does not change…
- Your career may change.
- Your roles in the church may change.
- Your family may change.
- You may be rich or poor.
- You may be young or old.
- You may work for a new company, start a business, or retire.
- You may be healthy or sick.
- Someone you love may be healthy or sick.
No matter what changes in your life, your purpose stays the same.
That’s what I mean by your purpose.
And this series is called “What’s My Purpose?”
Well, what is it?
This must be articulated carefully. While I do believe there’s more than one right way to say it, I also believe there’s only one primary purpose God has for your life. As I present that idea to you, I am going to choose my words very carefully.
If you’re taking notes, write this down…
God’s purpose for your life is to reproduce His glory through you so that the whole earth is full of His glory.
That’s God’s purpose for your life.
And, this morning, God wants you to see and embrace your purpose.
BODY
You were born to reproduce because it is God’s nature to reproduce, and you were made in the image of God.
When God made people, He made us in His image. Part of what that means is that He put aspects of His nature within us. One of the aspects of His nature that is in us is the desire to reproduce.
God wants to reproduce His glory in us! And so, when He created us, He made us with the desire to reproduce.
The desire of humanity to reproduce is evident across the board in human activity…
- Couples want to reproduce children.
In fact, it’s weird if they don’t want to! There’s something unnatural about it. Immaturity, ungodly worldviews, and self-centeredness may encourage someone to shut down that desire, but the natural desire is to reproduce children.
But we don’t just see this desire to reproduce in the desire to have children…
- Companies want to reproduce (why are there thousands of Chick-Fil-A restaurants instead of one?).
- Government leaders want to reproduce (their model, their ideology, their systems, their worldview – they want to reproduce it in other people and in other places).
- Coaches want to reproduce (they don’t just want to be great themselves, they want to develop a coaching tree where the coaches they have trained also go on to do great things).
- Ministry leaders want to reproduce (Ben Manis and Reaching Souls didn’t just want to win more souls, they wanted to reproduce more soul winners – and RSI has seen over 130 Million decisions for Christ through that reproduction).
- Pastors and mature disciple-makers want to reproduce (we don’t just want to see our church grow, we want to see the life of Jesus reproduced in the lives of others so that the body is built up with mature and effective ministers who work together to advance God’s Kingdom).
I’m just scratching the surface!
We often say, “Discipleship isn’t just something we do, it is who we are.” Why do we say that?
Because we understand we were made in the image of God and that we share His desire to reproduce. Disciples of Jesus long to see the glory of God reproduced in their life and in the lives of others! It is WHO WE ARE in Christ.
We were made to reproduce!
When God made us in His image, He made us to reproduce so that His glory will cover the earth.
God’s purpose for your life is to reproduce His glory through you so that the whole earth is full of His glory.
And we can see…
- God’s purpose of reproduction for His glory revealed in creation.
For just a moment, I want you to imagine that you have a front row seat to watch as God creates the cosmos.
(Not some seat way up in Loud City… you’re on the floor.)
You’ve never seen anything like this, and you don’t know what to expect. You look, and there’s the earth… without form and void… darkness covering the face of the deep…
And then… the Spirit of God moves over the face of the waters.
And God says, “Let there be light.”
Without a single star in the sky, God lights up the universe with His own light! And you marvel as your wonder what God will do next.
Next, God begins to gather some water so dry land appears. And you say, “Look! Dry land! What’s that for?”
Next, God creates grass and trees and plants to fill the dry land. And you go, “Ah! That’s what the land is for!”
But God doesn’t stop there. Within every plant, every tree, God places seeds so that each one can reproduce after its own kind. Immediately, you recognize God’s nature and glory ingrained in His creation through reproductive systems.
Then He makes the sun, the moon, and the stars. We’ve learned from space exploration that God never stops making stars. In Psalms, He is identified as the “star breathing God”. Stars continue to multiply stars in His ever-expanding universe.
From the macro – the stars in the heavens – to the micro – down to single cell reproduction – God’s creation reveals His nature and His desire to reproduce His glory through what He has made.
Next, you watch as God creates the fish of the sea and the birds of the air. And again, each one is created by God with the ability to reproduce after their own kind!
Then you watch as He makes the beasts of the field and all the animals of the earth. And the same pattern emerges… God makes them capable of reproduction… each one reproducing after their own kind.
Finally, at the climax, as the crown jewel of His creation, God makes mankind. When He makes us, He makes us in His image… both male and female are made in His likeness.
Genesis puts it this way…
Genesis 1:26a, 27
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…”
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
And there we are. God’s image bearers. The highest expression of His glory in all His creation. His likeness in us.
Then the monumental moment…
God opens His mouth to speak to His image bearer for the very first time.
You watch with great anticipation. What is He going to say?
First words matter! Of all the things God could have revealed to them in those first words, this is what He said…
Genesis 1:28
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it”
If I was writing the story, I don’t think I would have written those as the first lines.
But, thankfully, I am not the author of this story. God is. And of all the things God could have said, He said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth”.
Why? Because God has a vision…
God desires that His glory be reproduced through us so that the whole earth would be full of His glory!
What an awesome plan!
And what an incredible purpose from God.
Again,
God’s purpose for your life is to reproduce His glory through you so that the whole earth is full of His glory.
We see His purpose in creation, and we see…
- God’s purpose of reproduction for His glory revealed in His response to mankind’s fall into sin.
You know the story. What happens shortly after God completes His creation? The man and woman fall into sin.
They eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil… the fruit of the one tree God had forbidden them to eat.
And why did they do it?
Because they were deceived by Satan to pursue their own glory rather than the glory of God.
They were duped into believing that their greatest satisfaction would come from abandoning God’s purpose to reproduce His glory throughout the world. Instead, they believed their greatest satisfaction would come from seeking their own glory… fulfilling their own lustful appetites and desires.
That was their decision…
And man did that decision backfire.
Instantly, the man and woman fell into what the Bible calls a “fallen” state. Through them, sin entered the world, and death with it.
There’s a critical piece of theology we need to understand:
In the Bible, in what is called covenant theology, the Bible teaches that the covenants of God – the agreements He makes with people… the terms for relationship He establishes with us – they are established with the man and passed on through the seed of the man.
So, in God’s reproductive design, if Adam had not sinned, God’s purpose would have been realized through him, and Adam and Eve would have reproduced image bearers that filled the earth with the glory of God!
But when Adam sinned, he fell, and so did all his children with him.
Keep narrowing in on this with me…
The Bible teaches two realities about sin:
We are all sinners by nature and sinners by choice.
Of those two, the easiest to understand is sinners by choice.
All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Romans puts it this way…
Romans 3:10-11, 23
10 as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
We have all chosen to sin against God. In Psalm 51, in a Psalm of repentance after he committed adultery and murder, David humbly acknowledged his choice to sin like this…
Psalm 51:3-4a
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight
David acknowledged his choice to sin against God…
But he didn’t stop there. David also acknowledged his sinful condition before God from birth. In that same Psalm, David also said…
Psalm 51:5
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Why did David say that?
Because the Bible teaches that we are all born into sin through the seed of our father, Adam.
Let’s go even more granular…
You’ve heard people say we are “in Christ” before, haven’t you? That’s not just some sort of “Christianees” saying…
That means something very specific in the Bible.
From God’s perspective, and according to His design, every descendant is, in a sense, “in” their ancestor – that is, in their loins – before they were born. (Again, reproduction!)
Let me give you one of the clearest examples…
Hear the biblical assumption about the descendants being in his ancestor in a passage from the book of Hebrews…
Hebrews 7:9-10
One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.
Do you see God’s design? Hebrews assumes the descendant was “in” his father before he was born. Paul says the same thing—but instead of Levi and Abraham, he talks about Adam and us.
According to Paul, we were in Adam or represented by Adam when Adam sinned…
Romans 5:12, 19a
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned… For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners
When Adam sinned, we were “in” Adam.
Romans 5 is saying that sin entered the world through one man – Adam – and through the disobedience of Adam we were all made sinners.
Born into sin. Born of the seed of Adam. We are all sinners by nature and sinners by choice.
When Adam and Eve sinned, they experienced God’s judgement. But instead of annihilation (which was justly deserved), God pronounced curses for sin on the man and the woman, and on the serpent and the earth.
That’s the bad news, but the grace of God is evident, even in the midst of their sin!
Right in the middle of God’s pronouncements of the curse in Genesis 3, we find God’s first gospel promise!
When speaking to the serpent, God said…
Genesis 3:15
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.
The Hebrew word for “offspring” literally means “seed”. (re)
Through the seed of the woman (not the man), God promised redemption. Her seed would be bruised on the heal of the serpent, but her descendant would crush the serpent’s head.
This is the first glimpse of God’s redemption plan through Jesus!
Jesus is the promised seed of the woman. When He died on the cross, His heel was bruised (He shed blood)… but on that cross He defeated Satan and crushed the serpent’s head!
God’s promised salvation was accomplished through reproduction! Through the seed of the woman.
So, God’s purpose to reproduce His glory is seen in His nature, it is seen in His creation, and it is seen in His response to the fall of mankind into sin…
But here’s the best news; we also see…
- God’s purpose of reproduction for His glory fulfilled through Jesus.
When Jesus was born, He was born as one of us and into our likeness. But He was not born of the seed of Adam… Jesus was born of the seed of the woman, the virgin Mary, and of the seed of God!
If Jesus had been born of the seed of Adam, He would have inherited Adam’s fallen, sinful condition. But Jesus was not born of the seed of Adam. Like Adam, Jesus had no biological earthly father; Jesus was born of the seed of God.
This is why the Bible calls Jesus “the second Adam”.
1 Corinthians 15:45
45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
Why “the second Adam?”
Adam and Jesus shared something in common that is unique to them…
Neither had a biological earthly father. They are the only two men whose only father is God.
Instead of seeking his Father’s glory, Adam sought his own glory. Adam sinned and fell short of the glory of God, and all his children fell into sin with him.
But Jesus never sinned. He did not fall short of the glory of God. Jesus is the Son of God who accomplished what Adam failed to do.
Can you see where this is going?
What you and I really need is to be delivered from being born of the seed of Adam and be reborn of the seed of God.
And, through Jesus, God has made it possible for you and I to be born again so that we are no longer spiritual sons and daughters of Adam, but we become legitimate sons and daughters of God!
In John 3, Jesus said…
John 3:3
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
“Born again” is reproduction language!
Through rebirth, God’s plan to reproduce His glory through us is restored.
In John 1, the apostle writes this about Jesus…
John 1:9-13
9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Being born again is not a matter of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man…
Being born again is a work of God!
When we are spiritually reborn, it means our spirits are no longer born of the seed of Adam. That old spirit dies, and a new spirit is born in us… new creations IN CHRIST born of the seed of God!
Through rebirth, we who were once spiritually “in Adam” are now “in Christ”!
Our old, sinful spiritual self-dies, and we are born again of God’s Spirit as new creations in Christ. Born of the seed of God. The life of Jesus reproduced in us to the glory of God.
And suddenly, God’s purpose for our life is instantly restored.
What was lost in Adam is regained in Christ… and with even greater blessing! Adam was a living being, but Jesus is a life-giving spirit. Through Jesus, we become legitimate sons and daughters of the Most High God!
This is why, when God calls us His children, it is not just a term of endearment. Yes, we are dear to Him. But we are not just figuratively or metaphorically His children… we are spiritually reborn so that we are legitimate children of God!
John 1:12
12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
This is not because of your work or something you have done, this is because of the all-sufficient work of Jesus and what He has done for you. Through faith in Jesus, believing in His name, you have been given the right to become children of God.
Here’s what I’m really saying…
The failures of people cannot thwart the plans of God.
Adam failed, and we have all failed in him. But through the miracle of rebirth, God has made is possible for His purpose to be fulfilled in us!
And what is that purpose?
That the glory of God would be reproduced in us so that the whole earth is full of His glory!
How is the glory of God reproduced in us through Jesus?
It is reproduced in us…
- When God puts to death our old, sinful spirits and we are born again as new creations of the Spirit of God.
- Through sanctification as we mature in Christ; no longer seeking our own glory but living for the glory of God.
- Every time we share the gospel with someone and the Holy Spirit uses us to lead them to saving faith in Jesus.
- When we make disciples of Jesus so that the life and Kingdom of Jesus is expanded through us and through them.
CONCLUSION
God’s purpose for your life is that His glory would be reproduced in you so that the whole earth would be filled with His glory.
That’s God’s purpose for your life.
Have you embraced that purpose?
INVITATION: LOST
If God’s purpose is going to be fulfilled in your life, the first thing that has to happen is you have to be spiritually reborn of the seed of God.
SHARE THE GOSPEL
Have you been reborn of the seed of God?
If not, you can be born again through faith in Jesus right now.
INVITATION: SAVED
If you’ve been reborn, is God helping you see your purpose more clearly today?
Are there ways you’ve allowed something else to take the place of God’s purpose for your life?
- Has a side quest or specific assignment been given the place of “primary purpose” in your life?
- How is the Lord leading your right now to return to His purpose for your life?
Here’s the great news…
No matter your condition, no matter your stage of life, no matter what you’ve done or what you’re going through…
THIS PURPOSE CANNOT BE TAKEN FROM YOU.
And, with God’s help, you can ALWAYS turn to God and fulfill this purpose RIGHT NOW in your life.