Trinity 7 2026

Text: “8 [The 4,000] ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full” (Mark 8:8).

We're going to do a little bit of math this morning.

Please pull out your bulletin and follow along with the readings. If you have a pen, take it out. If you don't, borrow one of the little pencils at the end of the pew.

Let's begin with Genesis chapter 2. In verse 16, please circle the word "every." Then, in verse 17, circle the words "the tree." Now, out in the margin, write this simple equation:

Every > One

That may be the easiest math problem you'll do all week.

God says, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden." Every tree. Every fruit. Every good gift He had planted there for Adam. Then He gives one prohibition: "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat."

Do the math.

Every is greater than one.

God's generosity far outweighs His prohibition.

The very first thing Adam learned about God was not that God says "No." It was that God delights to say "Yes." Before there was a single command that limited Adam, there was an entire garden that proclaimed God's generosity. Every tree testified that God desired life for the man He had created.

But then the serpent came. Have you ever noticed what he did? He never asked Eve about any of the other trees. All of the other trees in the entire garden faded into the background, and all she could see was the one thing God had withheld.

That is still how sin works. Our sinful nature has terrible math. We stop counting God's gifts and start counting His prohibitions. We stop looking at what He has given and fixate on what He has not.

"If only I had a little more." "If only my life had turned out differently." "If only God had answered that prayer." "If only He had not allowed this suffering." Or we begin worrying about tomorrow. Will there be enough? Will the money last? What if attendance declines? What if giving decreases? What if... what if... what if...? Before long, we are no longer counting today's gifts. We are counting tomorrow's fears.

Now, none of those questions is sinful by itself. Christians make budgets. Families save for retirement. Congregations plan responsibly for the future. Scripture commends wisdom and faithful stewardship. But anxiety quietly becomes something more than planning. It becomes a judgment against the Giver. It begins to assume that tomorrow's God will somehow be less faithful than today's God.

It's easy for a congregation to spend more time asking, "Where will the money come from five years from now?" than asking, "What has Christ called us to do today?" Those are not the same question. One is driven by fear. The other is driven by faith. Faith plans wisely, but it refuses to let tomorrow's uncertainties overshadow today's promises.

Do you see what has happened? The problem isn't merely that we've become ungrateful. The problem is much deeper. Like Adam and Eve, we have begun to believe that the Giver is not good.

That is the serpent's oldest lie, and it is still his favorite. He convinces us that God is withholding life rather than giving it. He persuades us that real happiness lies somewhere outside God's will. He teaches us to distrust the One whose every gift had already testified to His love.

Once that lie is believed, everything else follows. If the Giver is not good, then I had better take what He has not given. If the Giver is not good, then His commands are obstacles rather than protection. If the Giver is not good, then I must secure my own future.

That was Adam's sin.

It is ours as well.

And where has that math taken us?

Saint Paul gives the answer:

"The wages of sin is death."

That is the equation we have earned.

Now let's do the math one more time.

Turn to the Gospel reading. In verse 5, circle the words "seven loaves." In verse 7, circle "a few small fish." Then, in verse 9, circle "four thousand." Now write another equation in the margin:

7 + a few > 4,000

Once again, God's math doesn't make sense. Seven loaves and a few fish should never be enough for four thousand people. And yet, when everyone has eaten as much as they wanted, there are still seven baskets left over.

But the miracle points beyond itself. It reveals something even greater than Christ's power. It reveals His heart. Before Jesus multiplies a single loaf, He says something that explains everything else: "I have compassion on the crowd." The bread simply reveals the heart of the One who gives it.

Think about what that tells you. The serpent painted a picture of a God who was withholding life from His people—a God who could not really be trusted, a God who was keeping something good for Himself. Jesus paints an entirely different picture. He sees hungry people, and He has compassion. He feeds them. He refuses to send them away empty.

Do the math.

Who acts like that?

The God who planted Eden. The God who clothed Adam and Eve after they had fallen. The God who fed Israel with manna in the wilderness. The God who has always desired life for His people.

The miracle doesn't reveal a different God than the One we met in Genesis. It reveals that He has never changed. His desire has always been to give life. His compassion has always been greater than our need.

Perhaps you're thinking, "Pastor, that's easy enough to believe when there are seven baskets left over. But what about when there aren't? What about when the diagnosis comes? What about when the prayers seem to go unanswered? What about when the cupboard doesn't seem quite so full? How do I know God is still good then?"

That is exactly the right question.

And the answer is not ultimately found in seven loaves.

It is found on a cross.

If you ever begin to wonder whether God is good, do not begin by looking at what He has given you.

Begin by looking at what He gave for you.

There, God answers the serpent's accusation once and for all. He does not answer it with an argument. He answers it with His Son. The same Lord who looked upon the hungry crowd with compassion looked upon a world dead in trespasses and sins with even greater compassion. He saw what our rebellion had earned. He saw the wages of our sin. He saw the death that was rightly ours. And He did not send us away.

Instead, He went to the cross. There, the One who deserved only life received death. The One who had never distrusted His Father bore the wages of those who had. The One who had never grasped after what was not His gave up everything that was His.

That is God's math.

That is how you know that the Giver is good.

So how do Christians do the math now?

The questions we asked earlier have not disappeared. We still wonder whether there will be enough. We still make budgets and save for retirement. Congregations still wrestle with difficult financial decisions and wonder what the future may hold. We still receive frightening diagnoses. We still stand beside hospital beds. We still bury those we love. Becoming a Christian does not remove us from a fallen world. The curse that entered through Adam still leaves its mark upon our lives.

But the cross has changed how we count.

Let's apply God's math.

Suppose you begin worrying about whether there will be enough money. That's a fair concern. Scripture never condemns planning ahead. Families should make budgets. Congregations should plan responsibly. Wise stewardship is part of faithful Christian living. But before you ever calculate what is in your checking account, God teaches you to calculate something else first. Saint Paul says, "He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us..." Think about what that means. Has the Father withheld His greatest treasure, or has He given Him up for you? If He has already given you His greatest gift, what reason do you have to believe He has suddenly become stingy? Your budget matters. But it is not the first number in the equation. Christ is.

The same is true for the Church. We may wonder where the next generation of faithful Christians will come from. We may wonder whether attendance will decline or giving will decrease. We may wonder whether there will be enough resources to continue the work Christ has given us to do. Those are real questions. But they are not the first question. The first question is this: Has the Father withheld His greatest treasure, or has He given Him up for you? Has Christ stopped building His Church? Has the Lord who fed four thousand with seven loaves suddenly become unable to provide what His people need? Faithful congregations plan wisely. They also remember whose Church this is. They begin, not with attendance charts or financial statements, but with Christ's promises.

What if the diagnosis comes? What if the treatments no longer work? Those questions are still there as well.

Let me answer them with a specific example.

Last week I watched a short interview with an elderly husband whose wife had recently died. He spoke tenderly about the love they had shared over many decades. Then he described watching her slowly waste away at the end. He described seeing her emaciated body lying in the bed just after she had died. He said that, in that moment, he fell in love with her all over again.

Then he said something I don't think I'll ever forget.

Speaking about her body lying there, he said, "It was as beautiful as a crucifix."

At first, that almost sounds offensive, doesn't it? We do not usually think of crucifixes as beautiful. They are instruments of torture and execution. Nor do we think of an emaciated body as beautiful. Death is an enemy. Disease is part of the curse. Christians do not pretend otherwise.

But Christians have always seen something in the crucifix that the world cannot see. We place crucifixes in our churches. We wear crosses around our necks. We sing about the wondrous cross. Not because suffering is beautiful. Not because death is beautiful. We call the cross beautiful because there we see the love of Christ. There we see the Son of God giving Himself for sinners. There we see death itself conquered by the resurrection that is coming.

That elderly husband was not praising death. He was confessing Christ. He had learned to see even death through the cross. He knew that what lay before him was not merely the broken body of the woman he loved. It was the body of one for whom Christ had died. One who had been baptized into Christ's death. One who would be raised in Christ's resurrection.

The cross had changed how he counted.

That is what faith does. Faith does not pretend suffering isn't real. It does not deny that death hurts. It simply refuses to let suffering be the first number in the equation. It begins where Saint Paul begins: "He who did not spare His own Son..." If the Father has already given you His greatest gift, then even the things you cannot yet understand must finally be interpreted through that gift.

The devil has never once fulfilled a single promise he has made. In the garden he promised life, but delivered death. He promised wisdom, but delivered shame. He promised freedom, but delivered slavery. Every temptation since then has followed the same pattern. Sin always promises more than it can ever give.

God often appears to work in exactly the opposite way. His gifts frequently arrive in forms that do not look like gifts at all. A cross does not look like victory. Repentance does not feel like freedom. Dying to yourself hardly seems like the path to life. Yet every promise God has ever made has proved true. Every one of them.

Nothing looked less like God's goodness than Good Friday. Nothing looked more like defeat. Nothing looked less like life. And yet that bitter tree became the life of the world. If God could accomplish your salvation through a cross, then He can certainly be trusted with the parts of your life that you cannot yet understand. Even the most bitter things we receive from His hand will, in Christ, be worked for our eternal good. That does not mean suffering is good. It means our Father has already demonstrated, once and for all, that He knows how to bring life out of death, victory out of defeat, and resurrection out of a cross.

So tomorrow morning, go back to your daily life.

Go back to your work. Go back to your family. Go back to serving your neighbors. Plan wisely. Save responsibly. Continue doing all those ordinary things through which God serves the world.

But do them having learned God's math.

Love generously. Forgive freely. When tomorrow's anxieties begin whispering in your ear, do not begin with tomorrow. Begin with Christ. When you are tempted to wonder whether the Giver is good, begin by looking at what He gave for you. Let the cross become the first number in every equation, and allow everything else to be interpreted in its light.

Because you live with a unique hope.

The message of this miracle—the feeding of the four thousand—is not that God will always miraculously remove your hunger. The message is that the God who has compassion on the hungry has never changed. The God who walked with Adam in the garden, the God who fed Israel in the wilderness, the God who had compassion on the hungry crowd, the God who did not spare His own Son—that God has not changed. He never will.

In the Garden of Eden there was a tree from which Adam and Eve reached out their hands to take what God had not given. They believed the serpent's lie that the Giver was withholding something good from them. They grasped for life, and instead they found death. That one act of distrust brought the curse into the world and closed the way to the Tree of Life.

But the God who had never stopped desiring life for His people answered that tree with another.

Upon the wood of the cross, the Son of God stretched out His hands, not to take, but to give. Adam reached out his hands because he believed God was holding something back. Jesus stretched out His hands because His Father was holding nothing back. The Father did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for you. Christ did not cling to His own life but laid it down for yours. At one tree, sinners tried to seize life for themselves. At the other tree, the Author of Life gave Himself so that sinners might live. His cross became a life-giving tree for all who hope in Him.

You and I are still cut off from the Garden of Eden for now. But the day is coming when the way to the Tree of Life will stand open once again. It will yield its fruit for you, and its leaves will be for the healing of the nations. The curse will be gone. Death will be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. The tree that was closed because of sin will stand open forever because of Jesus Christ.

Do the math.

The Giver has always been good.

He has not changed.

He never will.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.