Child in the Mist

First Series – Sermon One

Original by George MacDonald
Paraphrase by Dale R. Howie

"Childlikeness is the Divine."

 The Child in the Mist is the doorway to George MacDonald's Unspoken Sermons. It is not merely the first sermon in the collection; it is the foundation upon which the other thirty-five are built. Rather than beginning with doctrines or theological systems, MacDonald begins with a child. Through that simple image he gradually clears the mist that obscures our vision of God, ourselves, and His Kingdom. 

The title describes every one of us. We are children living in the mist. The mist is not our identity but our perception. We have forgotten who our Father is and, therefore, who we are. Throughout this sermon MacDonald patiently removes that mist, revealing the Father's character and inviting us into the life that has always been ours. 

One of the first things modern readers discover is that MacDonald writes differently than we think. He is not constructing a logical outline as much as leading us on an ascent. He often pauses to answer objections, returns to earlier ideas from a higher perspective, and repeatedly announces that he is climbing toward "a higher truth" or "the highest point." His sermons are meant to be experienced like ascending a mountain. Each step lifts us higher until, standing on the summit, we suddenly see the whole landscape spread before us. 

Understanding this changes how we read him. Instead of asking, "Where is he going?" we begin asking, "What higher view is he leading me toward?" Every section becomes another step upward. The child leads us to the Kingdom. The Kingdom leads us to childlikeness. Childlikeness leads us to the Son. The Son reveals the Father. From the Father's heart we discover His devotion, His family, and finally our true home in Him. 

MacDonald does not simply argue for truth; he unveils it. His purpose is not merely to convince the mind but to awaken spiritual sight. Like Isaiah's "line upon line, precept upon precept," he patiently guides the reader until the truth becomes visible from the summit. MacDonald follows that same pattern. Rather than arguing his conclusions, he leads us step by step until we begin to see what was hidden all along. 

Jesus once asked His disciples, "Who do you say I am?" Hidden within that question is another: "Who does that make you?" Our understanding of Christ shapes our understanding of the Father, and our understanding of the Father shapes how we understand ourselves, the Kingdom, and ultimately the whole purpose of creation. 

Everything that follows in Unspoken Sermons grows from the vision first revealed here: we are children of a childlike Father, created to share His life, His love, and ultimately His home. 

As this first ascent comes to its close, MacDonald does not simply end the sermon. He quietly opens the path to the next one. Having revealed the Father's heart, he leaves us with one final question: 

If the Father is perfect love, what is the meaning of His Consuming Fire? The answer awaits in the next sermon, reminding us that every sermon in the Unspoken Sermons is both a destination and a doorway.

 

Outline

Question: What is the central message of The Child in the Mist?

P1 - Essence of a Child – For the Childlike is the Divine.

   P2 - Kingdom’s Nature – Greatness is found in Serving.

      P3 - Simplicity of Childlikeness – God calls us to Share in His Life.

         P4 - Childlikeness of Father and Son – The Son reveals the Father’s Heart.

            T - Community of Children – Children serving in Truth and Love.

         R4 - Father’s Devotion – Our life is found in Their Self-Giving Love.

      R3 - Father of little Children – The Father never ceases forming His Children.

   R2 - Home – Our Childhood is born of His Fatherhood!

 

Mark 9:33-37 NLT

 

After they arrived at Capernaum and settled in a house, Jesus asked his disciples, “What were you discussing out on the road?” But they didn’t answer, because they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve disciples over to him, and said, “Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else.”

Then he put a little child among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, “Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not only me but also my Father who sent me.”

 

Matthew 18:1-5 NLT

About that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?”

Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them. Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. So anyone who becomes as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.

“And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me.”

 

Essence of a Child

Question: What does the child reveal?

These passages record what Jesus taught His disciples about ambition and the desire for superiority. But there is a higher truth here—a revelation concerning the very nature of the Divine itself.

Jesus used the example of an ordinary child, one possessing all the faults common to childhood, yet still expressing the essential quality of a childlike nature. To understand His teaching, we must recognize that Jesus saw childlikeness as something deeper than behavior. It is fundamentally relational. Sadly, many children have been denied the experience of true childhood. Forced by hardship to grow up too soon, they have exchanged childlike trust for worldly wisdom. Their divine childlikeness has been stolen and crushed. Yet the truth remains: The childlike is the Divine.

The disciples had been arguing about greatness. Jesus answered them, not with another argument, but with a child. Childlikeness has little to do with personal achievement and everything to do with humble dependence.

If the disciples had understood the essence of childlikeness, then even the most selfish child would have served as Jesus' illustration. Childlikeness is not defined by moral perfection but by its nature—its  openness, trust, and vulnerability. These were the qualities Jesus placed before His disciples.

To see life from the perspective of a child awakens something within the human heart. It calls forth the love that naturally belongs to childhood. Jesus was not merely pointing to children as examples for adults to imitate. He was revealing that childlikeness lies at the very heart of God's Kingdom because it lies at the very heart of God Himself.

Answer: The child reveals the heart of God. Childlikeness belongs to Him first.

 

Kingdom's Nature

Question: What is God's Kingdom like?

Let's look further into what this childlikeness reveals. Along the way the disciples had been arguing about who among them was the greatest. Jesus wanted them to see that this kind of thinking had nothing to do with His Kingdom. So He placed a little child before them to reveal its true nature.

Jesus told them they could not even enter the Kingdom while thinking this way. They would first have to become childlike by humbling themselves. The desire to rule, to control, or to occupy a place of power was contrary to the essential nature of His Kingdom.

There would be no more ruling, but serving. No more striving to be in charge, but lifting others. No more looking down on anyone from a position of authority—even spiritual authority—but looking up, honoring the dignity of every person, serving them until they awaken to who they truly are in Christ.

This is Kingdom thinking. Greatness is measured not by position but by humility; not by authority but by love expressed through service. The Kingdom of God is revealed wherever childlike hearts gladly serve one another.

Answer: It is a Kingdom where greatness is measured by serving others.

Simplicity of Childlikeness

Question: Why does Jesus begin with a child?

Now let us look at the deeper truth from which this lesson springs. God never asks of us anything that is not first true of Himself. He calls us to be perfect because He is perfect. He has placed His own life within us, making it possible for us to grow into an intimate relationship with the Father, Son, and Spirit through Their self-revelation within us. For this reason, Jesus placed the child before His disciples.

Whoever embraces this simplicity of childlikeness—even in something as ordinary as giving a cup of water or welcoming a little child—embraces the very nature of God's Kingdom. Such acts carry no hidden agenda. They are not done to gain the approval of others or even to earn God's favor. They flow from the purity of a heart that loves simply because love is its nature.

Only by receiving and giving in this spirit do we begin to understand the blessing hidden within Jesus' lesson. We discover that childlikeness is Divine. At the same time, the desire for honor, recognition, and power is exposed for the empty pursuit it truly is.

A disciple represents the One who sent him. Jesus could never send someone to represent Him who did not, in some measure, share His own heart. When He tells His disciples to receive a child in His name, He is revealing the common life they share. Child, disciple, and Master meet on the same ground—the ground of spiritual childhood.

To receive another in Jesus' name is not merely to perform a religious act. It is to recognize and welcome the life of Christ already present within that relationship. "In My name" speaks of shared life, not merely delegated authority.

Answer: Because God calls us to become what He already is.

Childlikeness of Father and Son

Question: Why does receiving a child mean receiving God?

There is yet a second and even higher revelation concerning childlikeness. Jesus said that whoever receives Him receives not only the Son but also the Father who sent Him. Here we begin to see a chain of relationship.

If we receive a child, we receive Jesus. If we receive Jesus, we receive the Father. These are the living connections Jesus Himself places before us.

I do not say this as some doctrinal certainty, for I aim at no such logical proof. Rather than prove, I seek to show, by following my thoughts progressions, the truth toward which Jesus is leading us.

The Son perfectly reveals the Father because the Father is like the Son. In the same way, the child reveals something of Jesus because Jesus Himself is childlike. Full of grace and truth, the Son embodies the very qualities that awaken our hearts to recognize true childhood.

Here we discover our common ground. The Father, the Son, and all God's children meet in this shared reality of childlikeness. Therefore, to receive a child in Jesus' name is to receive Jesus himself. The child becomes a living window through which the Father Himself is seen.

This is not sentimentality about children. It is a revelation of God's own nature. In the true vision of childlikeness, we begin to see the Father as Jesus reveals Him. He is Father because eternal childlikeness—humility, openness, self-giving love, and joyful relationship—belongs to His own being.

So it is with the child and Jesus. Childlikeness lies at the very heart of the Son. He is full of grace and truth, and the child, in its simple childlikeness, reveals something of the very heart of Jesus. It is here that we find our common ground with the Father, Son, and Spirit, for childlikeness is the shared life of God's family. Therefore, to receive a child in Jesus' name is to receive Jesus. To receive Jesus is to receive the Father. Thus, in welcoming the child, we are welcoming the Father Himself.

Answer: Because the child reflects Jesus, and Jesus reveals the Father.

 

Community of Children

Question: What does God's family look like?

If God is truly childlike, then His Kingdom must reflect His nature. It is not an empire built upon power, rank, or privilege, but a family of children serving one another in truth and love. Jesus is its King, yet He reigns as the servant of all. As He Himself declared, "The kings of the earth exercise authority over others, but it shall not be so among you." In His Kingdom, greatness is measured by humble service rather than by position or power.

To receive a child merely because the Father receives them, or simply for the sake of their humanity, is one thing. But to receive them because they bear the image of God is something far greater. The first may soften ambition; the second destroys it. Service performed to gain recognition has already lost its reward. But service flowing from childlike love reveals the true nature of the Kingdom.

Service offered to gain recognition, influence, or spiritual standing belongs to the kingdoms of this world. Childlike service seeks no reward beyond love itself. As we receive and serve others in our own childlikeness, we begin to honor the true dignity of humanity. We recognize every person as one created to share the Father's life.

MacDonald now carries Jesus' words to their highest meaning: "Whoever receives Me receives not Me but Him who sent Me." To receive Jesus is to receive the Father. But the Father can only be truly received by knowing Him as He really is. To know Him is not merely to understand truths about Him, but to participate in His very life.

Jesus is one with the Father because He perfectly reveals the Father's heart. The child reflects Jesus because childlikeness reveals the same self-giving life. Therefore, the child points us beyond itself to the Father. Here we begin to glimpse the mystery of our union with God. Divine life is not expressed through domination but through childlike love. In receiving the child, we are ultimately receiving the Father's own heart.

Answer: Children who love and serve one another as the Father loves them.

 

Father's Devotion

Question: What does God want most?

Do we truly believe in the Incarnation? If we do, then we must ask what it reveals about God Himself. Jesus did not become loving when He became man. His humanity revealed what had always been true of the Them. In Christ we see that humility is as divine as majesty, obedience as divine as authority, and service as divine as dominion. The Father delights in the Son, and the Son delights in the Father. Their relationship has always been one of perfect, self-giving love.

From eternity They have never sought Their own advantage, but have continually given Themselves in love. The Incarnation was not a departure from God's nature but its perfect revelation. In Jesus we see the eternal heart of the Father made visible in human life.

This leads us to an even greater truth. God's devotion to His creatures is complete. He loved us first before we ever loved Him. Our love for Him is never the beginning of the relationship; it is simply the response awakened by His love for us. Every act of devotion we offer is but a reflection of the devotion They have always shown toward us.

God does not live for Himself. The Trinity lacks nothing and therefore seeks nothing for Themselves. His joy is found in giving life, blessing, and love to His children. At the very center of reality is this other-centered, self-giving life. It is the heartbeat of the universe and the source of every truly human relationship.

Whatever is noble in friendship, faithful in marriage, tender in motherhood, steadfast in fatherhood, or sacrificial in love finds its origin in Him. Every glimpse of genuine goodness is but a faint reflection of the infinite beauty of God's own heart. He is stronger than the greatest hero we can imagine, yet gentler than the most tender embrace. He is more welcoming than the best of fathers and more faithful than the truest of friends.

The question before us is not whether God is devoted to us, but whether we will receive His free gift. Will we trust His self-giving love enough to surrender our lives into His hands? Will we, in gratitude, begin to love others with the very love we have first received from Him?

God has but one purpose for His children—that we should share His own life. He desires that our thoughts, our love, our joy, and our relationships increasingly reflect His own. His purpose is so clear, so good, and so unwavering that one day every heart will recognize it. Nothing can ultimately stand against the perfect love of the Father.

How greatly God has been misunderstood. Too often He has been portrayed as a monarch preoccupied with His own greatness, ruling from a distant throne and defending His honor through fear, power, and judgment. Yet Jesus reveals a very different God. The Father seeks neither admiration nor self-glory. His greatness is revealed in humility, His majesty in love, and His glory in the blessing of His children.

Answer: To give Himself completely to His children.

 

Father of Little Children

Question: What kind of Father is God?

Brothers and sisters, have you found our King? Look closely and you will see Him—not seated upon a throne demanding homage, but holding little children in His arms and declaring that they are like God. There He is again at the supper table, allowing His beloved disciple to rest against His breast, patiently loving one who has not yet fully understood Him. Such scenes reveal the true nature of our King far more clearly than all the images of earthly power ever could.

The simplest shepherd who loves his sheep or the humblest father who delights in his children offers a truer picture of God than the distant monarch so often imagined by religion. God is not less than these expressions of love; He is infinitely more. Every genuine act of tenderness, patience, and compassion finds its source in Him.

This is the God who speaks to the vast and ever-changing universe with quiet wisdom and unwavering purpose. He is never hurried. He is willing to spend ages forming a single soul until that child comes to know Him and share His joy. He delights in every awakening of truth, every glimpse of beauty, every small response to His voice. Nothing given in love is insignificant to Him.

He is the God of builders and artists, of music and mountains, of oceans and stars. His wisdom quietly weaves together history, creation, and every human life without losing even the smallest detail. His purposes move steadily toward their fulfillment because they are grounded in perfect love.

This God is the Father of little children. He alone is completely given for the good of His creatures. Every pure affection we experience as parents, friends, husbands, wives, brothers, or sisters is only a faint reflection of the love that has always existed in Him. Our highest hopes, our deepest longings, and our greatest joys all find their beginning in His heart.

Not one thought, not one tear, not one hope of any one of His children escapes His notice. While even one heart remains unsatisfied, the Father's work is not complete. Such is the measure of His devotion. Such is the greatness of His love.

Answer: A patient Father who never stops loving and forming His children.

 

Home

Question: Where is our true home?

Therefore, together with angels and archangels, with the righteous made perfect, with the little children of the Kingdom, and with our Lord Himself, we gladly lift our voices and pray, "Our Father."

We do not come because we are worthy. We do not come because our hearts are always filled with love or because our lives have been faithful. We come because He is our Father. Our confidence rests, not in ourselves, but in Him.

It is His Fatherhood that gives birth to our childhood. His perfect relationship with us is greater than all our failures, our weaknesses, and our wandering hearts. The child does not create the Father. The Father gives life to the child. Therefore, our hope has never rested in the strength of our faith but in the faithfulness of His love.

Perfect faith is not found in those who always feel close to God. It belongs to the one who comes to the Father even when every good feeling has disappeared. Burdened by failure, distracted by weakness, and painfully aware of personal neglect, the child still says,

"You are my refuge and my life because You are my home."

Such faith is not presumption. It does not attempt to bend God to its own desires. It trusts that the Father's wisdom is always better than its own. God never grants what would ultimately destroy His children, for to do so would be to leave them imprisoned in darkness rather than leading them into Life.

The Father is never forgetful, even when His children are. His purpose does not rise and fall with our changing circumstances. Life is not a random series of accidents interrupted by occasional acts of grace. It is one continuous providence, patiently guiding every child toward the Father's house.

There will be moments when we cry out for comfort, yet the Father's answer may first come through painful truth. Love cannot embrace what destroys love. The Father faithfully turns us away from all that is contrary to His life, not to abandon us, but to heal us. Even the darkest moments of conviction become instruments of His restoring grace.

And if we ever forget who He is, He will not forget who we are.

Therefore, the final words of this sermon are not words of fear but of hope. The Father whose childlike love has called us home is also the Father whose holy love refuses to leave anything within us that is unlike Himself.

"Our God is a Consuming Fire."

Answer: Our home is the Father's life, where we learn to trust His love.

Sermon Answer: We are children of a childlike Father, created to share His life, love, and home.

 

_______________________________________________________

Continue your Quest . . .

Next Trilogy Sermon - Abba, Father!

Next Sermon - Consuming Fire

________________

 

CLIFF NOTES WITH MACDONALD’S ORIGINAL QUOTES

 

ESSENCE OF A CHILD

 “He took a little child… whose very faults were those of a childish nature… For the childlike is the divine.”

 “That the child should be childlike; that those qualities which wake in our hearts, at sight, the love peculiarly belonging to childhood, which is, indeed, but the perception of the childhood.”

 KINGDOM’S NATURE

 “He told them they could not enter into the kingdom save by becoming little children—by humbling themselves. For the idea of ruling was excluded where childlikeness was the one essential quality. It was to be no more who should rule, but who should serve; no more who should look down upon his fellows from the conquered heights of authority—even of sacred authority, but who should look up honoring humanity, and ministering unto it, so that humanity itself might at length be persuaded of its own honor as a temple of the living God.”

 SIMPLICITY OF CHILDLIKENESS

 “Nothing is required of man that is not first in God. It is because God is perfect that we are required to be perfect. And it is for the revelation of God to all the human souls, that they may be saved by knowing him, and so becoming like him, that this child is thus chosen and set before them in the gospel.”

 “This means as representing me; and, therefore, as being like me. Our Lord could not commission any one to be received in his name who could not more or less represent him; for there would be untruth and unreason. Moreover, he had just been telling the disciples that they must become like this child; and now, when he tells them to receive such a little child in his name, it must surely imply something in common between them all.”

 CHILDLIKENESS OF FATHER AND SON

 “I do not say it is necessarily so; for I aim at no logical certainty. I aim at showing, rather than at proving, to my reader, by means of my sequences, the idea to which I am approaching.”

“God is represented in Jesus, for that God is like Jesus: Jesus is represented in the child, for that Jesus is like the child. Therefore, God is represented in the child, for that he is like the child. God is child-like. In the true vision of this fact lies the receiving of God in the child.”

 COMMUNITY OF CHILDREN

 “What is the kingdom of Christ? A rule of love, of truth—a rule of service. The king is the chief servant in it. "The kings of the earth have dominion: it shall not be so among you." "The Son of Man came to minister."

 “But to advance now to the highest point of this teaching of our Lord: "He that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me." To receive a child in the name of God is to receive God himself. How to receive him? As alone he can be received,—by knowing him as he is. To know him is to have him in us. And that we may know him, let us now receive this revelation of him, in the words of our Lord himself. Here is the argument of highest import founded upon the teaching of our master in the utterance before us. God is represented in Jesus, for that God is like Jesus: Jesus is represented in the child, for that Jesus is like the child. Therefore God is represented in the child, for that he is like the child. God is child-like. In the true vision of this fact lies the receiving of God in the child.”

 FATHER’S DEVOTION

 “Let us dare, then, to climb the height of divine truth to which this utterance of our Lord would lead us. Does it not lead us up hither: that the devotion of God to his creatures is perfect? that he does not think about himself but about them? that he wants nothing for himself, but finds his blessedness in the outgoing of blessedness. In this, then, is God like the child.

 That he is simply and altogether our friend, our father—our more than friend, father, and mother—our infinite love-perfect God. Grand and strong beyond all that human imagination can conceive of poet-thinking and kingly action, he is delicate beyond all that human tenderness can conceive of husband or wife, homely beyond all that human heart can conceive of father or mother.

 Ah! it is a terrible—shall it be a lonely glory this? We will draw near with our human response, our abandonment of self in the faith of Jesus. He gives himself to us—shall not we give ourselves to him? Shall we not give ourselves to each other whom he loves?

 He has not two thoughts about us. With him all is simplicity of purpose and meaning and effort and end—namely, that we should be as he is, think the same thoughts, mean the same things, possess the same blessedness.

 How terribly, then, have the theologians misrepresented God in the measures of the low and showy, not the lofty and simple humanities! Nearly all of them represent him as a great King on a grand throne, thinking how grand he is, and making it the business of his being and the end of his universe to keep up his glory, wielding the bolts of a Jupiter against them that take his name in vain.”

 FATHER OF LITTLE CHILDREN

 “Brothers, have you found our king? There he is, kissing little children and saying they are like God…

The simplest peasant who loves his children and his sheep were—no, not a truer, for the other is false, but—a true type of our God beside that monstrosity of a monarch.”

 “This God is the God of little children, and he alone can be perfectly, abandonedly simple and devoted.”

 HOME

 “For it is his childlikeness that makes him our God and Father. The perfection of his relation to us swallows up all our imperfections, all our defects, all our evils; for our childhood is born of his fatherhood. That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and his desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to him, "Thou art my refuge, because thou art my home."

That for God to give a man because he asked for it that which was not in harmony with his laws of truth and right, would be to damn him—to cast him into the outer darkness.”

 “Life is no series of chances with a few providences sprinkled between to keep up a justly failing belief, but one providence of God.”