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1. How do you enter the kingdom of heaven?

If you want to come into the UK you have to come in on a plane or a ship.  You also have to have a valid EEC passport or the appropriate tourist visa, work visa or student visa.  If you want to enter the Kingdom of Jordan in the Middle East, you can again fly in or cross the border with Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia or (possibly) Israel.  Again, all the appropriate papers need to be in order.

But what about the kingdom of heaven? How do you enter that kingdom?

It is clearly not a matter of flying or any conventional means of travel.  Indeed, the kingdom is not a place as such, but it is a sphere of God's leadership and direction.  It is not a matter of the relevant papers either.  Some people wangle a place in this country by sneaking in and remaining undetected for long enough.  Some fairly claim political asylum.  Others marry UK citizens; sometimes honestly, sometimes not.  Others have grandfathers who were or are UK citizens.

None of these things will work with God's kingdom.  You cannot sneak in.  There is no political asylum as such.  Having a wife or a grandfather or some other relative who is a Christian will not give you an automatic place.

No, in answer to the disciples' question, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"  Jesus chose at first not to say anything.  Rather he chose to illustrate what he was about to say by calling a little child and having him or her stand among them.  We get the impression that there were often little children around Jesus and you can imagine him taking one of them by the hand and drawing him or her into the circle of men.  Perhaps he or she was a little nervous to see 13 men towering over them.  There are traditions about who the child was, of course, but that is not important.  The illustration is what matters - a tiny child and 13 great hulking men.

Then Jesus talks about how to enter the kingdom of heaven.  He says that at least two things must happen.

A. You must change

Verse 3 begins, "And he said: I tell you the truth, unless you change ... you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."  You need to be converted.  Now by this time the disciples (11 of them anyway) had been converted.  God had changed them.  However, at this present moment they were full of themselves.  They were flooded with pride and they needed to change if they were really going to be in the future and coming kingdom.

So we need to see first that, if we are ever to enter the kingdom either in its present or future manifestation, then we must change.  We must be converted.  There must be a transformation.  "You must turn," Jesus says.

Have you been converted?  Has God changed you?  I have a book somewhere entitled "He changed me".  It is a book of 10 testimonies from different people about how they were converted.  They are all different, but in every case God came in and he changed the person involved.  He converted them.  Has that happened to you?

B. You must become like a little child

Jesus goes on, "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."  This is why he had the child stand among them - as a visible parable.

There has been some speculation on what Jesus meant by saying they needed to become like little children to enter the kingdom.  Children have a number of characteristics that could be in mind.  There is a certain innocence about children, and often a frankness and simplicity, a lack of pretentiousness and a humility that can be very attractive.  They are also very weak and vulnerable.

Which of these traits did Jesus have in mind?  I think probably that the chief thing in the Saviour's mind was the way that children were then (and even now sometimes) thought of as being unimportant and insignificant.  Think of the scene and imagine Jesus saying, "This what you need to do."  You don't need to be more like him or him or him but like this little child down here.  You need to humble yourselves.  You need to stop thinking so highly and mightily of yourselves and start thinking of yourselves as little children - insignificant, helpless, little children.  "Humble yourselves" he is saying.  Get yourself down to the right level.

I was looking today at a picture of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.  It has been in the news recently and is probably the oldest church building still around, dating from 325 AD.  It has a doorway into it that is purposely made so that you cannot ride into the church on horseback.  It is called the "Arch of Humility".

To enter the kingdom of God demands humility.  It is like the narrow gate Jesus spoke of.  Everything has to go - all our pride and self-confidence - in order to enter the kingdom.

Have you ever to been to one of those adventure playgrounds for children (Legoland, etc.)?  You know how on certain rides they have restrictions - you have to be a certain height: not too small or too tall.  To enter the kingdom, there is a height restriction, as it were.  You have to get down to a certain height to enter.

Have you become like a little child again?  Have you become small in your own eyes and acknowledged your weakness and insignificance?  This is not a popular message today, but it is always the gospel message.  There is only one way into the kingdom - it is by becoming a little child.

This is one reason why, in a sense, it is easier to become a Christian now than at any other time.  Children, never think "It will be easier when I'm older."  No, if anything it will be harder.  I think the older you get the harder it is in some senses.  While you are a child you know you are not important You may dream of people paying attention to you but you know in reality you're just a kid.  That should help you to have the right frame of mind to enter the kingdom.

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2. How can you be great in the kingdom of heaven?

This leads on to the question that the disciples asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of God" or "How can I be great in the kingdom?"

It's easy to become the world heavyweight boxing champion - you just have to beat the other guy.  Again, it is easy to be the greatest football team in the World Cup.  You just have to keep winning against the other sides.

Who is the greatest in the United Kingdom?  It is a little complicated.  The Queen is the head of state, but then the Prime Minister has an important position in the nation's hierarchy.  Then there are the Lords temporal and spiritual.  They have a lot of power.  Think of the Lord Chancellor and the Archbishop of Canterbury for example.  There are other kinds of greatness too.  There are people less known to us who have significant amounts of power or greatness: in the judiciary, in the police service, in MI5 and MI6, in the army, the navy and the air force.  What about those with power in the health service and the civil service?  What about those in the business and commercial world, and those who run the media?  Which celebrities have the most influence over people's attitudes and outlooks?

What about in the kingdom of God then?  What is the key to greatness there?  Jesus says very simply, "Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."  The humbler you are the greater you are.  The lower you go the higher you rise.  It is a paradox, of course.  One that, in theory at least, we are familiar with but we need constant reminders of it I'm sure.

Like the disciples, we keep thinking the way forward is the worldly way - to push ourselves to the front, to tread others down.  The Bible speaks about the need to grow up, and it is so easy to start thinking that the way to do that is by asserting ourselves and raising our own profiles.  It is not.  The way up to heaven is down, not up in the normal sense.  Are you remembering that?  Are you seeing, as John the Baptist saw, that Christ must increase and we must decrease all the way?

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