The Work of Jesus
Quick-
Why did Jesus come to earth?
Our immediate answer is usually something like, “to seek and to save the lost,” and that is certainly true.
However, why did Jesus call twelve men to Himself and spend three years training them if the ONLY thing He came to do was die for sinners? Clearly, if that was the only thing He came to do, He wasted a lot of time with the insignificant and frustrating task of training and correcting twelve guys (with them, several others) who seemed pretty dense much of the time. Was this just a hobby for the Lord?
No. Jesus plainly intended to do more than just die for sinners. He even intended to do more than just bring people to saving faith in the message of redemption at the cross.
His intention was to MAKE DISCIPLES.
Many of us have overlooked that.
When Jesus tells His disciples in Matthew 28 to make disciples, we think He is telling them (and us) only to “make converts,” or “give out the gospel of salvation.” However, that is not what He told them to do. He tells His disciples to make disciples, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” All the things that the Lord taught the eleven men who heard that commission took Him three (or perhaps four) years of intense teaching and example, while He lived with them almost twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. Therefore the things Jesus intended His disciples to teach other disciples include much more than simply the message to “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.”
In John’s gospel, chapter 17, Jesus prays the “High Priestly prayer” in the presence of the eleven faithful disciples. In it, He clearly says that He has done the work that His Father gave Him to do. Jesus says that He has done this work already. Yet, He has not yet gone to the cross to die for sinners. Clearly, Jesus was given something to do that went beyond the precious and glorious atonement. Christ’s death for sinners is what we, in our need, focus upon. However the atonement was not the only thing that Christ, in His obedience to the Father, focused upon. Rather, Christ was satisfied that He had accomplished the work of glorifying the Father on earth, and manifesting the Father to the people whom the Father gave Him out of the world. (John 17:4-6). Jesus could say that His work was done because He had made sure that His disciples knew that everything Jesus taught was from God, and that His disciples believed that Jesus was from God (John 17:6-8). Bringing His disciples to the point of faith in Him and maturity in that faith was the work that the Father had given to Christ and that He had done, even before going to the cross. (John 17:4)
After the resurrection, Jesus reminded His disciples of the importance of the growth and maturity of those who were to be His disciples when He told Peter to feed His sheep in John 21 (verses 15-19). Jesus was not just interested in Peter and the disciples calling the sheep or gathering the sheep, although that is certainly necessary if they are to be fed. Jesus was also concerned that the disciple who loves Him feeds Christ’s sheep, caring for them and seeing to their spiritual growth and needs in His physical absence.
Making disciples- men and women who understood all that Christ commanded -was Jesus’s work. It was the work that He passed on to those disciples in Matthew 28. It is the work that He passed on to all of us who are now His disciples by their work and word.


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