What is the significance of Jesus asking, "Are you not of more value than they?" (Matthew 6:26)?

The Lord appeals to the disciples, in view of the creature subjected to man, against personal anxiety. It is humbling but wholesome for them to draw lessons of dependence thence. And first, He points to the winged class, familiar everywhere to human eyes, as objects of divine care and dependent on His beneficent provision. How much more are not His own in their incomparably higher and nearer relationship to Him! and how powerless too is their anxiety to effect relief!

But here the Lord guards His own from anxious thoughts in their daily life. Sparrows, as He taught later, are cheap enough; yet as not one of them shall fall to the ground without our Father, so He preserves them and other birds great or small without foresight of their own.

If such creatures, the unclean as surely as the clean, are the habitual recipients of His beneficence, how much must His sons be? It is an argument from the comparatively mean and distant to those whom grace deigns to bring into the nearest relationship with Himself. And the Lord's aim is to impress on His disciples, so favoured, the obligation of confiding in the love of their Father without a doubt or a fear. Why should they not, instead of yielding to the anxiety natural to such as either know not God at all like Gentiles, or own Him in an altogether lower way like the Jews?

It seems almost needless to say that the words afford not the least ground for those who alleged a discrepancy with Prov. 6:6-8. For the latter impresses the common duty of industry, and therefore reproves the sluggard from the text of the laborious ant. The former calls the believer to cherish faith's reliance on the Father's care, without an anxious thought. The one is as true as the other; but the latter goes deeper and rises higher because of the revelation of the Father's name to those who believe on the Son.

It is an arresting word, "take no thought for your life," whether in regard to daily food or necessary clothing. Though necessary, these things must not be allowed to occupy time and thought as though they were vital matters. We have far more than this to live for. The birds are a pointed object lesson for us. They make no preparations for obtaining meals, yet God the Father has provided this necessity for them in such a way that they simply obtain their food as they need it. True it is that we could not exist in the same way, but faith may nevertheless count upon God to provide through giving employment, health, strength, or whatever is required to take care of these things. Faith in a living God is the vital matter here, faith that does not degenerate into anxiety. Man, who is capable of a conscious knowledge of, and communion with, his Creator, is of much more value to God than the birds.

The name of their Father made anxiety about earthly and bodily wants a painful incongruity, and in particular about what kind the supply should be. From Himself the birds read them one lesson, and the lilies another. He nourishes each fleeting creature, He gives the passing flower its beauty. How much more did He care for His children? It was a touching appeal and carrying with it to every believer the conviction of irresistible truth. They were, they are, called to believe in His sustaining goodness. He never fails in His love: they ought not to fail in resting and counting on it day by day. If tried as to it, let them not doubt that it is for their good. It is impossible for God to lie. Are they to doubt His love Whom the Lord reveals as their Father? He who embraces the least objects of His care will act worthily of His love to the nearest.

Nor does the Lord spare them the humbling proof how little the anxiety of man avails. "Which of you by anxiety can add to his stature one cubit?" It was a very small thing if some would count it a very great addition. Yet even for this how powerless is man! Why then be anxious about a garment? The herbage of the field rebukes the vanity of a child of God; for as the Lord called their attention to the lilies, he pointed the moral by the plain fact that God clothed even these transient creatures, lower in the scale than the birds, with a beauty far beyond Solomon's array in all his glory.

The Lord applies this also in another way. Passing as pilgrims and strangers through this world we have certain needs. We are independent of the scene altogether excepting as regards our bodies. In all other respects we are made to feel with the Psalmist that it is a dry and thirsty land where no water is. But our bodies have needs; they must be fed and clothed. Our blessed Lord, in His tenderness for and sympathy with us, takes notice of these our wants; and He does so because He knows how often care, springing out of these necessities, comes between our souls and Himself, and prevents all possible enjoyment of the Father's love. In the parable of the sower indeed He mentions the cares of this world as one of the things that choke the seed of the Word, so that no fruit is brought to perfection. He therefore provides also an antidote for this evil. He tells His disciples to take no thought, i.e. to have no anxiety, for their life, what they shall eat, nor for their body, what they should put on. And, to enforce the exhortation, He reminds them that the life is more than meat, and the body than raiment; and then He adduces two illustrations of God's care that would ever meet their eyes — the fowls of the air, and the lilies of the field. They could scarcely step out of their houses without seeing bird or flower, and then He would have them remember that God fed the one and clothed the other, and that if so, seeing they were of more value in His eyes than either ravens or lilies, much more would He feed and clothe them.

(3) But are there not, in going through the world, necessities which demand one's attention; from which one cannot escape, and which tend to such distraction as this, even when the heart would gladly be free? Yes, surely; but there is a remedy also, which is an effectual one, ― a sanctuary-refuge which faith finds ever open: it is the apprehension of a Father's care, of which His creatures preach incessantly. The birds of heaven are fed, and we are of more value: the life, indeed, of too great value to make it a question of the food by which it is sustained; or the body, of what it may be clothed with.

(4) The human impotence that we feel has its own instruction. All one's anxiety cannot add a cubit to the stature; and how much there is in this way for which we are absolutely dependent on the will of another! why not, then, leave all things to Him to whom we have to leave so much, and who clothes the perishing lilies of the field with a glory greater than Solomon's? The weakness of a man's faith is the only really sorrowful weakness, after all.

Here as He points, not to birds but to the flowers, He does not speak of sowing or reaping or storage, but of toiling and spinning: God cares for the birds without the one, and for the lilies without the other. Were not His children far more to their heavenly Father than either? Not only were they God's offspring as mankind universally are, but His children by grace through faith. It is not that sowing or reaping, toiling or spinning, might not be a duty, if they had to provide for themselves and their household, and could earn their supplies by these labours more readily than otherwise. Even in an unfallen world, Jehovah put Adam whom He had formed into the garden of Eden to till it and to guard it, when there was none to hire for the needful work, and he himself might happily employ his own hands,

Sin brought in sad change, not only for man's soul and body, but for the very ground on which he trod, as scripture plainly tells us. It was no longer easy and delightful work, but in toil or sorrow he must eat of it all the days of his life. And no wonder; since thorns also and thistles it should yield to him, only to be overcome by the sweat of his face in order to eat bread. If self will kick against the goad, it only aggravates the case; if the yoke (and it is not here grievous) be accepted, it is all the better for murmuring men. There is no deliverance from guilt and sin but through faith in Christ, to whom the Holy Spirit bears witness, and by whom He gives power to the believer. But for children as yet unconverted as well as adults in the same state, occupation is a merciful help, against the dangers of idleness and indulgence of lust and passion. Even for the faithful it is good, as declining to work where the person is without means is bad: so much so, that the apostle curtly lays it down, that if a man likes not to work, neither let him eat. This prescription, if duly administered, would in general prove a salutary medicine, and without fail.

'Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?' (v. 26). The Lord Jesus points His disciples to the fowls of the air as example of God's care in feeding His creatures. The fowls do not sow, neither reap, nor gather into barns. But this does not imply that we (that is men) are not in need of doing it. Already in Proverbs 6:6 the sluggard is presented the ant as a picture of diligence. The fowls also have to look for their food. But they do not know any sorrow. And yet, God who feedeth them (Psa. 147:9), is not called 'their' but 'your heavenly Father'. He is here not called the Father of all men not to mention of all animals, but he is called the heavenly Father of His children (see Matt. 5:16;45;48).

'Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?' (v. 27). No-one can change anything by his own strength or worry in regard to his stature as in Luke 19:3 or his age as in John 9:21 and Heb. 11:11 (where the same expression is used in the original). And it would not be of any profit either.

The fowls at least have to do something for finding their food; but the lilies do not toil for their 'raiment'! They grow and develop so to speak 'by themselves'. It is solely and only the glorious grandeur of our creator which is displayed in the manifold colours, the beauty and tenderness of flora-and this is so to our joy as well. Not even king Solomon's glory as described in 1 Chronicles 9 can compare with the beauty of blossoming nature. And yet this splendour only lasts for a short time, and especially so in the hot climate of the Orient. Stalks and leaves of faded flowers used to be gathered in these countries to fuel an oven. God the creator of all fauna and flora has fitted them in such admirable manner and sustains them. He will also provide for His children, who are much better than they, in fatherly manner with food and clothing. Yet how often do we also show little faith in this respect!

Serving God, who is indeed a heavenly Father, we come under His watchful and kindly care. He knows all our needs and concerns Himself about them. We are impotent; unable to add a cubit to our height, or to array ourselves like the grass of the field. Our Father has infinite wisdom and power, and cares for the humblest creatures of His hand: we may have absolute confidence therefore in His loving care for us. Hence we are to be free from all anxious care. The men of the world are grasping at the treasure of this world which wastes so quickly, and they are full of care as to its preservation and use. We are to be resting in our Father's care and love, and therefore free of anxiety.

Now this is mainly negative. We are to be free of the anxious care which fills so many hearts; but this is in order that we may be free to seek the kingdom of God, and to seek it first. Instead of peering into tomorrow with apprehension, we are to be filling up today with the things of the kingdom and that kingdom leads us in the ways of righteousness.