This illustration operates in two ways, as we see better in Matthew's Gospel: ‘Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven’ (Matthew 18:3). It can be applied to people, grown people, who are seeking the Lord. To seek and find the Lord we must become as little children. We must lay aside our proud opinions and notions of what we think God should be like, and how he should behave, and we should start all over again learning from the message of the gospel, learning from the Scriptures: how to come to him by repentance and faith in Christ alone. We have got to come humbly and meekly to him, as needy people, as sinners who need to be forgiven. So it can apply to unconverted people who need to be saved. The disciples were behaving like unconverted people, so the Lord says to them, ‘Except ye be converted…’ You have been radically changed and become as little children. Do we regard the disciples as converted at this point, or not? Yes, undoubtedly they were. Undoubtedly they knew the Lord, trusted him, walked with him and we must regard them as converted people. So why does the Lord call upon them to be converted? Well, it is to impress this upon them first of all, that they are behaving like unconverted people, if we are seeking things for ourselves and in the church of all places behaving like the unconverted. He also knew for certain that one of them was unconverted, Judas. May be there were others in the wider circle around the twelve apostles, who were unconverted, so it is always important to speak like this.
But in Mark it is the other application of the illustration of the child, which is pressed. Mark is using it to describe the humility and approachability of the servant of Christ. ‘Whosoever’, among you disciples – he is addressing the disciples, and his servants throughout time – ‘shall receive one of such children.’ But children are so insignificant; they are so small, and this is a little child, possibly the child can barely speak. Am I to stoop down to the simplest, and the lowliest? ‘Whosoever shall receive’ – not slight or turn away from – ‘one of such children in my name’ – for the sake of his soul, for the sake of the gospel. And particularly we are thinking of the child who in his way is a believer – ‘receiveth me’, because Christ is in that child. And this applies not only to little children, but remember in Matthew's Gospel, it is adults who are portrayed as little children. Any adult who, ‘as a little child’. So it includes young believers, adult people who are childlike before God. ‘Whosoever shall receive one of such children, receiveth me.’ All true believers have Christ indwelling them. If we receive them, then we receive Christ; and if we receive Christ we receive the Father. That is the argument, so I must be approachable to all.
I remember once – many years ago – one young man who aspired to be a pastor, and when we started him off by encouraging him to take a Sunday School class, he was very put out. That was beneath him: to teach a Sunday School class. His aim was to preach to adults straight away. He didn’t want to do anything quite like that.
Now somebody may be a true believer, and yet that person may have done some very wrong things, or believed some very heretical or wrong ideas. How should I behave towards that person? Christ doesn't mean to say, I receive that person as a church member, as a brother or sister, if there were serious things to be corrected. But it means, I am approachable. I am not standoffish. That's the rule that must bind me. I cannot reject him, because whatever patience or help or reproof he may need, Christ owns him. If I have nothing to do with him at all, or reject him altogether, I am in danger of rejecting the one who possesses him, who indwells him by his Spirit. So this is about the approachability and openness to helping people on the part of the disciples. ‘Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me … and him that sent me.’ The approachability of the disciples. A child. The child – well, you don't want to be like little children in every sense, but this is an ideal view of a child. There is a little child. Christ has his arms around him. He is quiet, docile, obedience. That's the picture. The child is content with his lot. The disciples too are be like children in this sense: not ambitious for office or for reward; content, trusting, always learning. Do you wish to be shepherd among the people of God, a pastor, a preacher? You are going to be doing final exams, as it were, every week of your life. You're going to be a perpetual student. You are like a child now in the best sense: ever learning. You are going to be like a child in some senses. The little child is ever aware of his weakness and his need, and you are going to have to humbly be always aware of your need of God's power and help and patience and goodness, dependent upon the Lord in prayer, a perpetual student, gleaning from the word things for the people of God. So even the disciples; they are to receive people as you would receive a child, never turning away, and they in some senses to be like little children in their contentment and in their learning mode. So there are instructions about the humility and approachability of the disciples.