The Making of a Miracle Part 2
The Making of a Miracle • Sermon • Submitted
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The Greatest Miracle of All
The Greatest Miracle of All
When you think of miracles what comes to mind? Your thoughts may immediately go to miracles in the Old Testament performed by God such as the parting of the Red Sea or the victory over Jericho. Maybe your thoughts go to the New Testament and the miracles of Jesus such as healing lepers and raising the dead.
Some Christians would say the greatest miracle in the Scriptures was creation or possibly the birth, death and resurrection of the Christ.
All of these are great answers. But every single one of these miracles had a motive behind them. And there we find the greatest miracle of all.
Behind everything God does He has a purpose, and intent or a motive. To find the greatest miracle of all we have to find the motive behind the miracle.
Genesis 1:1 tells us:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
In Genesis, creation is initiated with the spoken Word of God. But a clue to the motive behind it we find hidden in the first Hebrew letter which is Bet ב representing a house. From the beginning God intended to build a house, a family of sons and daughters made in His likeness and image. But what is the motive for this miracle?
In Exodus, God delivers Israel from the enslavement to Pharaoh and Egyptian pagan culture. Was His intent to have a people of His own who would sing and dance for him? Or was there a deeper and richer motive for this miracle?
Exodus 3:9 gives a clue:
And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.
So often we have relational conflicts because we make assumptions about other people’s motives. Our motive assumptions cause us to hear and interpret other people’s words and actions through our lens of reference. Often, this is the result of past traumas, offenses, conflicts and other negative experiences with people.
As a result of this nature, we often make assumptions about God as well. In fact, when we face difficulties, we often assign our assumed motives of others upon God as well. But Scripture tells us that the motive of God is the same in all He does. Even in His judgement, His motive remains the same. Let me show you.
The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
We love because he first loved us.
Wow! And that is just a few of many examples of God’s motive. His motive behind every miracle is His great love. And again, God does not just love as in the noun ahavah אַהֲבָה. God’s love is the verb le-eho’v לֶאֱהוֹב. When God loves it has a purpose. It seeks to accomplish something good and glorifying to His great Name. His love is never directed towards a thing but a person and that person is you. What is really interesting, is that in Hebrew the word for “to like” is the same as “to love”. So, to say you will reluctantly show love to someone, in order to appease God’s commandment to love, but you do not have to like them, really does not stand when it comes to God looking at your heart’s motives.
So, if love is God’s motive, what is the miracle of His love that He has given to us from the miracle of creation to the miracles of a crucified and resurrected Christ?
He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.
Thank God we do not get what we deserve as the dirt we are. For the wages of sin is death. So, what is the greatest miracle God has ever done for you? If you never recognized all the miracles of each moment of every day that he has granted, can you remember this the greatest miracle He has ever done for you?
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Do you see it? The greatest miracle God ever did for you is “forgiveness”. Something you did not earn or deserve. Something He did not have to give or owe you. The greatest miracle is that a just and holy God, the God of all creation, intentionally and purposefully, motivated by His great love, chose to forgive you and mark all of history with that great miracle with the death and resurrection of His own Son Jesus Christ.
Now the question is what will you do with this great miracle? Will you live in it? Will you receive it for yourself? Will you let it transform you? Will you let it heal your soul and mind? Will you let this miracle make you new? And finally, will you give that same miracle to others, others as undeserving as you were?