06 What Does it Mean to Receive Jesus?

by Krisan Marotta | Mar 11, 2026 | 01 Podcasts, Start Strong

In Matthew 10:40-42, Jesus teaches something surprising: how we respond to His followers reveals how we respond to Him, and ultimately, to God Himself. This isn't just about being nice to Christians. It's about a spiritual choice that carries eternal weight. This post explores what it means to "receive" Jesus and his messengers and why our response to ordinary believers matters more than we might think.

A Mission Bigger Than Ourselves

What happens when people who once lived for themselves suddenly share a mission bigger than themselves? That is the story of the community of Christians, and it begins with Jesus sending out the Twelve.

In Chapter 6 of Start Strong: A New Believer’s Guide to Christianity, we look at the unique bond created between believers, a bond rooted not in shared interests or personalities but in a shared worldview.

Today, we are back in the Gospel of Matthew, listening to Jesus’ instructions to the Twelve as he sends them out to preach to the cities of Israel. As Jesus prepares them for the reaction they will face, he tells us something important about his people and how we view to each other.

Who are The Twelve?

While Jesus was on earth, his followers were called disciples. The Twelve were the disciples closest to Jesus. The word disciple refers a learner or follower.

What is a disciple?

They traveled and lived with him during his public ministry. They received unique and special training the majority of his followers did not receive. After his resurrection and ascension, Jesus gave these now-eleven men the authority to speak and teach for him. They became his apostles. The word apostle means one who is sent out.

What is an apostle?

The Commission (Matthew 10)

At this point in the story, Jesus has been healing people of all kinds of diseases, proclaiming that the kingdom of heaven is near and training the Twelve. Now he sends them on a journey to preach the gospel among the towns of Israel. This is an important step in the process by which the Twelve will become his apostles.

The people of Israel must decide how to respond to the message of Jesus. The Twelve must learn to be faithful even when the people reject them. Ultimately, they will also be speaking before Gentiles, but for now Jesus asks them to remain in cities of Israel.

Jesus has warned them to expect rejection and persecution but to remember their fate is in God’s hands. This is not a victory tour. His message does not bring peace but a sword.

His message is divisive because it requires people to choose to follow or reject him. That choice will divide even the closest human relationships.

After all those warnings, Jesus tells them some people will respond positively to the gospel. This is the section we want to look at.

In the Bible, What Does It Mean to "Receive" Someone

40 Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. 41The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. 42And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward. -- Matthew 10:40-42

In this context, what does it mean to receive someone? In modern English, receiving often sounds passive. Receiving a text from a friend requires no effort. I simply receive it.

But in the Bible, receiving typically refers to a deliberate choice. To receive someone is to accept or welcome them. To receive the apostles is to make the conscious choice to heed what they say.

At the core of the gospel is a call to respond to God and his messengers. Receive is one of the words used to capture that response. When we receive the gospel, we choose to accept and embrace it.

Examples:

Mat 10:14 “And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.” Receive here parallels listening to your words.

Luk 8:13 “And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away.” Receiving the word here is initially embracing the gospel.

Luk 18:16-17 “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

Receive captures the idea of choosing to embrace the gospel with childlike trust. To receive is to make the crucial choice to accept, welcome, or embrace.

In our passage, Jesus tells the Twelve: whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. In other words, whoever chooses to listen to you, chooses to listen to me, and to the God who sent me.

This is important for the Twelve. They will be on the front lines of spreading the gospel. How people choose to respond to them is not only important for their safety, it also indicates how people respond to God.

We face the same question today. When we confront the writings of the apostles in Scripture, we must choose how we will receive them. Will we believe them or not?

What does it mean to receive a prophet "in his name?"

Jesus speaks of receiving a prophet because he is a prophet. Some translations say in the name of a prophet.

To act in someone’s name is to act as a representative. Police who say "open up in the name of the law" come as representatives of the state. They are authorized to act on its behalf and enforce its laws.

Just as the police speak in the name of the law, the prophet speaks in the name of God. If I receive a prophet in the name of a prophet, I receive him because of his authority as a representative of God. I might not find the prophet impressive as a person, but I acknowledge that he represents God and thus I accept him and listen to him.

This is the big concept of our section. How do you see the messengers of Jesus? The Twelve are not speaking for themselves. They did not invent a new philosophical system. They are being sent by Jesus, proclaiming his message and speaking in the name of their master.

How people respond to them reflects how people respond to the Master who sent them because they come in His name.

Why Jesus Links Eternal Rewards to How We Treat Believers

When we think of rewards, we think of prizes we have earned. That is not the flavor of rewards in the Bible.

Heb 11:6 says "God rewards those who seek him."

The reward is the desired outcome of seeking God. We want the outcome of rescue on the day of judgment, forgiveness, and life in the kingdom of heaven.

In our passage, the reward in view is eternal life in the kingdom of God. It is not earned by heroic feats. It is a gift God gives. But it is a reward in the sense that it is the desired outcome of faith and repentance.

Why Jesus Calls the Twelve Little Ones

Children recognize their need. They depend on their parents for survival, for teaching, and for good things. They run to their parents the way we ought to run to God. We need to abandon our proud autonomy and cast ourselves on his mercy.

When Jesus calls his disciples children or little ones, he has in mind this humble dependency. The Twelve are not going out as high-powered leaders with impressive pedigrees. They are ordinary people who have humbly submitted to Jesus and who carry a vital message.

What Righteousness Means

In biblical terms, the question "am I righteous" can mean three things:

Am I justified or condemned before God? This is justification. We are guilty before a holy God, but Jesus paid our debt through his death and resurrection. The righteous in this sense are those whose sins are forgiven.
Am I morally perfect or corrupt? This is holiness. Only Jesus is righteous in this sense. We are justified sinners and born-again sinners, but not holy sinners.
Does my heart respond to the truths of God or am I spiritually hard-hearted? This is the Psalms’ contrast between the righteous and the wicked. The righteous are the repentant who are poor in spirit and who mourn their sins. In this sense, the righteous are those whose hearts are rightly oriented toward God.

This third sense is what Matthew has in view here. Whoever receives a righteous person is welcoming someone open to God.

Putting Matthew 10:40-42 Together

Paraphrase:

Those who welcome you, my disciples, also welcome me. Those who welcome me also welcome the God who sent me. Those who welcome a prophet because he is a prophet will receive from God the same inheritance the prophet receives. Those who welcome a person who seeks God because he seeks God will receive from God the same inheritance as those who seek Him. Those who are kind to one of my seemingly insignificant followers because they follow me, even with something so small as a cup of cold water, will not lose their reward.

Two Core Ideas

There are two important ideas here:

How you respond to the followers of Jesus, including his apostles, is how you respond to Jesus.
How you respond to Jesus is how you respond to God.

Jesus assumes the apostles will accurately represent him. If they invented a health and wealth gospel, people might receive them, but they would not be receiving Jesus because he did not teach that message.

When the disciples accurately represent Jesus, their response to them reveals their response to Jesus. Their message calls people to make a choice that will determine their eternal destiny.

Prophets and Righteous People

A prophet proclaims the word of God because God has given him a message and authorized him to proclaim it. The prophet hopes in God for mercy. That is his reward.

If I welcome a prophet because I believe he is from God, I take his authority seriously. My response to the prophet reflects my response to God. I will receive the same mercy because we share the same humble posture toward God.

Likewise, if I welcome followers of Jesus because they follow Jesus, that shows I love Jesus too. My response to believers reflects my response to God. I will receive the same mercy because I share the same repentant heart.

This shows the Twelve the importance of their mission. They represent Jesus and God to the people, confronting them with a choice that has eternal significance.

God Reaches out Through Intermediaries

God rarely steps into history to speak directly to people. Very few had a relationship with God like Moses, Elijah, or Isaiah, where God spoke to them. Comparatively few sat at Jesus’ feet. Of those, only twelve were chosen as apostles.

The rest of us know God because others told us about him. God has spoken through prophets, apostles, and his Son, Jesus Christ. We relate to God by learning what he told them.

Jesus tells the Twelve they stand in his place. How people respond to the apostles is how they respond to Jesus.

We can extend this to us. The Twelve are no longer with us, but every disciple represents Jesus in a lesser sense. If a person welcomes you because you follow Jesus, that says much about how they respond to God.

This is a major New Testament theme. According to Jesus, our eternal destiny is revealed by how we respond to his disciples.

You Cannot Seek God and Avoid Jesus

It is not true that Jesus has a piece of understanding and other prophets or philosophies have the missing pieces. All we can know of God’s person, character, and authority is manifest in Jesus. Jesus is the one who reveals God’s plan and purpose.

You cannot seek God and avoid Jesus Christ. There is nowhere else to go. Sooner or later you must deal with Jesus because all of God is found in Jesus. Jesus has authority over every inch of creation, including you. There will not be a vote. It all comes down to how you respond to Jesus.

03 Colossians 1:13-23 You can not seek God and avoid Christ /

The Pharisees’ Error

One of the great tensions in the gospels is that the religious leaders claimed to love God but hated Jesus. They insisted someone sent by God would look more like them. They thought they could reject Jesus yet love God.

Jesus says that is not possible. He is the perfect reflection of God. If you do not like what Jesus is saying and doing, you do not understand God.

He who receives the disciples of Jesus receives Jesus. He who receives Jesus receives God.

Three Intermediaries That Reveal Our Hearts

By intermediary, I mean someone between us and God whose reception reveals our response to God.

Jesus. We cannot claim to love God and reject Jesus. His teaching and actions show us who God is. Our response to Jesus shows our response to God.
The prophets and apostles. God chose some to proclaim his message. How we respond to them shows how we respond to God. We cannot claim to love Jesus but reject what Paul or the other apostles wrote. How we respond to the gospel Paul proclaims shows how we respond to Jesus.
Other followers of Jesus. We cannot claim to love God and hate people who genuinely love and seek to follow Jesus. We will spend eternity together. We agree on the most important issues of life, even if our personalities do not mesh.

When we open our hearts to Jesus, to his prophets and apostles, and to his people, we are in fact opening our hearts to God.