The greatest Miracle

What Is God's Greatest Miracle?

A Study in Miracles  ·  Night Two

(Opening): We're going to look at four miracles, and we're going to ask one question of each: is this God's greatest miracle?

Case Study #1 — Creation and the Human Body

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

God formed everything out of nothing. He didn't have blueprints, He didn't have pictures, He didn't have an instruction manual to go off of. He just spoke, and it was.

Take water,

for example. What does H₂O stand for? God didn't have to study chemistry to know that. He just knew — two hydrogen, one oxygen, that's water. That's how you make it.

What about light?

Did He have to study other suns to get ours right? Did He have to measure the correct distance from the earth to sustain life? No. God knew the brightness, the distance, the exact rotation everything needed to be at to sustain the life of plants, trees, animals, and people. Everything the sun touches, God knew it would be needed to sustain life.

Was God's greatest miracle when He created humans? Did God guess when He made us? Let's look.

Look at Your skin

It's the largest organ of the human body.

A piece of skin the size of a quarter contains roughly a yard of blood vessels, several yards of nerves, around a hundred sweat glands, and more than a million cells.

Skin is self-healing.

Its layers constantly wear down — and constantly replace themselves, over and over again.

Take your skeletal system

The average adult has 206 bones. They serve multiple functions: some protect your vital organs, others support your frame. Bones even help supply essential minerals, and red and white blood cells are manufactured within them.

Your muscular system

The body has somewhere around 600 muscles — some voluntary, some involuntary. And the list goes on and on: the digestive system, the circulatory system, the nervous system, the sensory organs.

So is the human body God's greatest miracle? It is intricate. It is marvelous.

Genesis 1:26–27 (NASB 2020)

Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness…”

Psalm 139:14 (NASB 2020)

I will give thanks to You, because I am awesomely and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.

God did show out when He made the human body. Every fiber is woven by His hand. He knows everything about you.

And then there's the breath. In Genesis 2:7, God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life — the Hebrew there is neshamah, “the breath of life” — and man became a living being. (The broader word ruach — spirit, breath, wind — is how Scripture speaks of God's Spirit, and Job 33:4 sets the two side by side: “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”) God gave us a created spirit — not a piece of Himself, but life that came from Him.

When God gave life to humans, did He hold anything back? No — He made us with deliberate care, every detail intended.

So is human life the greatest miracle? I can't say that it is. It is phenomenal. It is something only God can do. But it isn't His greatest.

Case Study #2 — The Sun Stands Still

For the second miracle, I want to look at something that can be a bit of a doozy to fully grasp.

Joshua 10:1–5 (NASB 2020)

Now it came about when Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem heard that Joshua had captured Ai, and had utterly destroyed it (just as he had done to Jericho and its king, so he had done to Ai and its king), and that the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were within their land, that he feared greatly because Gibeon was a great city, like one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all its men were mighty. Therefore Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem sent word to Hoham king of Hebron, to Piram king of Jarmuth, to Japhia king of Lachish, and to Debir king of Eglon, saying, “Come up to me and help me, and let's attack Gibeon, for it has made peace with Joshua and with the sons of Israel.” So the five kings of the Amorites … gathered together and went up, they with all their armies, and camped by Gibeon and fought against it.

Israel had made peace with Gibeon, and king Adoni-zedek didn't like it — because Gibeon was a great city. So the king devised a plan. He gathered four other kings to march on Gibeon and go to war against it.

Joshua 10:6 (NASB 2020)

Then the men of Gibeon sent word to Joshua at the camp at Gilgal, saying, “Do not abandon your servants; come up to us quickly and save us and help us, for all the kings of the Amorites that live in the hill country have assembled against us.”

So immediately, Gibeon cried out to Joshua: “Help!”

Joshua 10:8–10 (NASB 2020)

And the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not fear them, for I have handed them over to you; not one of them will stand against you.” So Joshua came upon them suddenly by marching all night from Gilgal. And the Lord brought them into confusion before Israel, and He struck them down in a great defeat at Gibeon…

On his way to the battle, God told Joshua, “I have handed them over to you” — meaning, you've already won. You just need to fight.

Here's where I want us to watch another miracle happen:

Joshua 10:12–13 (NASB 2020)

Then Joshua spoke to the Lord on the day when the Lord turned the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, “Sun, stand still at Gibeon, And moon, at the Valley of Aijalon!” So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, Until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies. Is it not written in the Book of Jashar? And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hurry to go down for about a whole day.

Joshua prayed: don't let this sun go down on the battle today. And God heard him — the sun and the moon both stopped for about a full day.

Joshua 10:14 (NASB 2020)

There was no day like that before it or after it, when the Lord listened to the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel.

So was the sun standing still God's greatest miracle? Not quite. It was spectacular. It was phenomenal, I'm sure. But it wasn't His greatest.

Case Study #3 — Jonah

Jonah 1:2 (NASB 2020)

“Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry out against it, because their wickedness has come up before Me.”

The task is simple: go to the city of Nineveh, tell them they've sinned and need to repent. And what does Jonah do?

Jonah 1:3 (NASB 2020)

But Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship that was going to Tarshish, paid the fare, and boarded it… away from the presence of the Lord.

Jonah runs.

He gets on the boat, and God begins to hurl a great wind on the sea. The waves grow so violent the ship begins to break apart. The others on board are terrified — praying to false gods, throwing cargo overboard, trying anything to stay afloat. After they wake Jonah up and tell him to pray, to do something, they cast lots to see who's to blame. Jonah loses. And they start asking him questions:

Jonah 1:8–10 (NASB 2020)

Then they said to him, “Tell us, now! On whose account has this catastrophe struck us? …” So he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.” Then the men became extremely afraid… because they knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord.

They ask him what they have to do to live. Jonah says: throw me into the sea. They don't want to — they try to row back to land, but they can't. Finally they do what Jonah said, and throw him into the sea.

Jonah 1:17 (NASB 2020)

And the Lord designated a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish for three days and three nights.

Jonah 2:1–2 (NASB 2020)

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish, and he said, “I called out of my distress to the Lord, And He answered me. I called for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice.”

Jonah 2:10 (NASB 2020)

Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.

Jonah 3:3 (NASB 2020)

So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk.

This time Jonah did exactly what God told him. He went, he preached, “repent, turn from your evil ways” — and the city of Nineveh did exactly that. They turned.

So was the greatest miracle Jonah being swallowed and then delivered? Or was it when the whole city of Nineveh repented, and God relented from the disaster He had said He would bring? We're getting close — but no. This still isn't His greatest.

Case Study #4 — The Cross, the Empty Tomb, and You

From Malachi to Matthew is roughly 400 years. There were books written in that time, but we don't recognize them as holy Scripture — so from our point of view, it was silent. God was working in the background as far as Scripture was concerned.

And then —

Jesus Christ.

Born of a virgin,

laid in a manger,

no proper bed.

He lived a perfect life for about thirty-three years.

He was falsely accused of crimes He did not commit.

Wrongly persecuted.

Whipped and beaten.

A crown of thorns pressed into His skull.

Made to carry the heavy cross up a hill — so weakened that a stranger had to be pulled from the crowd to help Him carry it.

Nailed to it.

Lifted up to die.

And here is what we can never miss: no one took His life from Him. “I lay down My life… No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative” (John 10:17–18).

He was not simply overpowered by Rome. He gave Himself. And He did it for you — in your place, bearing your sin. “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross” (1 Peter 2:24).

The innocent One died for the guilty, so the guilty could go free.

But the cross is not where the story stops.

Three days later the tomb was empty.

He rose.

And that changes everything — “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17).

The resurrection is God's receipt that the payment was accepted, that death is defeated, that the new life He offers is real. The cross paid for it; the empty tomb proves it.

So now we come to it — the greatest miracle.

And it isn't only back there, two thousand years ago. It reaches all the way to a lost sinner from Rutherfordton, North Carolina.

A boy who lived on Big Island Road.

Whose parents loved him but weren't the best of parents.

Who at thirteen watched them divorce.

Who saw his dad arrested for gambling and his mom run through men.

A boy who was addicted to pornography.

Who had sex before marriage.

Who ran from God's calling for most of his life…..That boy was me.

And hear me — I am not God's greatest miracle. I'm just a sinner saved by grace. God's greatest miracle is what the cross and the empty tomb were for — it's the moment His love reaches down into the deepest pit you can be in and picks you up. Not because He has to. Because He loves you.

Friend, you've heard my background. You'll keep hearing story after story of miracles. But a miracle isn't just some massive happening on a stage. It's personal. It's a heart coming home. It's revival that happens in one life — In you life.

So if you've been distant from Him — come home.

If you are deep in sin — come home.

If you need a friend - Come home

If you need a savior - Come Home

There is a miracle waiting for you today. All you gotta do is have faith.