Matthew 6:27

Matthew 6:27

It is well for men to think that there are some things which, with all their power, they cannot do. The inquiry of the text serves to rebuke our anxiety and humble our impious ambition, by asking us questions which conduct us still farther into the glory and the mystery of God's kingdom.

I. Which of us by taking thought can find out God? "The world by wisdom knew not God." The world dreamed, guessed, groped and the result was an acknowledgment of the Unknown.The world in the fulness of its wisdom found its way to an unexplained shadow, and there it stood, terrified by its own discovery, dumb through fear, skulking from a spectre which it could never brighten into a god.

II. Which of you by taking thought can direct his own life? This we have tried to do many a time, so we can speak with all the distinctness and emphasis of experience. There are some things which your heavenly Father takes into His own hands. There are some keys which He never takes off His own girdle and puts into the possession of cherub, seraph, or man, seeing that you are beaten at every point, and thrown back hopelessly in many of your endeavours. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness."

III. Which of you by taking thought can discover a plan for redeeming and saving the soul? This is a subject on which we have expended thought. Still there is unrest in our souls; there is bitterness in our chief joy. If you cannot add one cubit unto your stature, how can you save the world?

IV. This great fact of the Divine limitation of human power is to rule us in the deepest of our studies and in the profoundest of our worship. If we lay hold of this truth, and have a clear, deep, tender conviction of it, three great effects ought to be produced upon our life: (1) it should foster the most loving and confident trust in the goodness of God; (2) it should moderate our tone respecting opinions which are not decisively settled by revelation; (3) this truth should encourage us to cultivate with fuller patience and intenser zeal the powers which we know to be capable of expansion.

Parker, City Temple,1871, p. 297.

Carefulness of a certain kind is not only allowed; it is required. But anxiety is forbidden. Due care is a moderate amount of thought. Anxiety is that immoderate degree of thought about anything which distracts the mind and disquiets the heart. Due care assists effort, making the eye single, the hand steady, the foot firm. Anxiety embarrasses exertion, making the eye evil, the hand tremulous, the foot feeble.

I. Anxiety is evidently useless about things not under our own control. The duration of life is one of these things. Anxiety may abbreviate, and certainly it does embitter life, but it never can prolong it. Health and disease are other things in connection with which anxiety is useless. Anxiety brings disease and cherishes it, instead of preventing and checking it. "Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?"

II. Anxiety is useless in matters under our own management. Now, it is God's ordinance that we should earn our bread by the sweat of our brow, and the most honourable men are those who have to do it and who do it. Now, anxiety will not furnish opportunity of earning bread or arm us with power. Anxiety never opened a port, or brought a foreign order, or improved the money market, or filled and ripened an ear of corn.

III. The utility of anxiety is nowhere apparent. It does not attract to us the notice of God. It does not induce God to care for us. He cares for us irrespective of our carefulness. Moreover, there is no promise made to anxiety. There are great promises made to diligence, to prudence, to faith, to hope, to trust especially to trust; but there is not one to an anxious mind. Anxiety is dealt with as a moral disease.

IV. The strongest possible proof that there is no advantage in anxiety is found in the fact that Jesus bids you get rid of it. He never tells us to part with anything that is worth keeping. Cast it off, then, and get rid of it. "Casting all your care on Him, for He careth for you."

S. Martin, Penny Pulpit,New Series, No. 318.

References: Matthew 6:27. Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 168; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xv., p. 164; J. Keble, Sermons' for Sundays after Trinity,Part II., p. 74.