Matthew 6:28 Commentary and Bible Study

‘And why are you anxious about clothing?’ Here is another major concern that troubles the hearts of many. Christ is not speaking only about luxuries and fineries, or a desire to follow the fashions. This is not just about concern over having the latest and greatest high street brands, but about anxiety over the most basic needs, over having any clothing at all and over covering the body and keeping warm. Of course if we are not to worry about even basic covering, far less are we to worry about being clothed in finery.For most in our land today basic clothing is not a problem, but to understand what the Lord means, let us think of someone who genuinely comes close to failing to supply his own basic needs. We of course have in mind a disciple of the Lord for though God sends his rain on the righteous and the wicked, he is especially concerned for his own, and this promise is particularly to them, for it is an expression of his love and it is this that gives them comfort.It is God who clothes; it is he who made the body and provided skins to cover man’s nakedness after the fall. We rightly look on clothing as essential now for warmth and decency, yet some struggle to provide even these basics for themselves. Will God forget that we have this need when it was he that ordained clothing for man in the first place? Of course not! How can we be sure of this? Look, says Christ, at the lilies of the field. Have you ever come across a simple flower growing in a solitary place, away from the haunts of man? Have you been struck by its simplicity and the modesty of its beauty, and told yourself that God designed it and caused it to grow in all its unassuming elegance? Yet there it is – trembling shyly in the breeze, wonderfully proportioned, delicately coloured, gracefully formed: a testimony to its Creator. God has worked as the perfect artist, not overstating one theme but balancing proportion and colour. He makes flowers that are so delicate and with such slender stems that one wonders how they can survive and yet they stand up against the wind and move in beautiful harmony with their neighbours. He also makes things of immense strength: trees that can withstand great storms and remain proudly aloft. He forms a flower that emphasises some theme and surprises us because of its extraordinary nature, but it bears nothing of the amateurishness that human products can have. Each one humbly accepts its place in God’s scheme and faithfully witnesses to the glory of its Creator. Have you read in it the lowliness of him who is meek and lowly in heart? It exists for that purpose, even though it is in a fallen world and has only a brief life. God has not utterly withdrawn from this world, but left traces of his working everywhere. The Creator has poured so much thought into even that one flower head, so that man knows it is beyond his ability to work in the same way. It is right that the Son of God, the Son of man, the perfect man who understood perfectly the lessons that come to us through nature, should have poetry in his soul. For the marvellous lessons which God teaches are too profound to be looked at directly and confronted head on, analysed to death until we have destroyed them. Rather they should be held lightly in the heart and treated with respect as truths which have the capacity to surprise and grow within us, which are greater than us and originate ultimately as do all facts in the heart of God.It is not important which flower the word ‘lily’ refers to. For the argument to have any weight, it is of course necessary that we see nature as coming directly from the hand of God. If there is beauty in nature, that beauty is not a product of chance but is the work of its Creator. How sad that this whole argument is lost on the evolutionist, who cannot see the hand of an intelligent Designer. But the Christian has no such inhibitions. These flowers; how do they grow? Do they worry about what they will put on? No, God clothes them without any effort on their part, without any understanding of what they need. They do not plan or contribute to their own design. They are a very lowly form of life and receive what they have entirely passively. Does God when he works unaided in this way make mistakes, overlook things, need help or advice from human beings? Of course not. And yet what does God produce when he works unaided in this way? Are the wild flowers inferior to what man can clothe himself with? No, they excel all that the wisest and greatest and most skilful of kings has ever produced. Solomon with all his man-made splendour could not rival one of these simple flowers. Though there was no king in Israel who compared to him for wealth and reputation and magnificence, Christ says that a single wild lily is clothed more wonderfully. We walk past them as if they were not worthy of a second glance; God’s work deserves far more praise than it receives.