The beginning of a sermon that I spoke in the Doelen in the early eighties of the last century.
A Christian can be compared to a stamp.
A stamp, that little peace of paper in itself, is worthless, and that is how people are.
Some 10 years ago there was someone who told me that the material of which mankind is made of was worth about 7 guilders 50. Maybe that is now 15 guilders, I don’t know, but taken as a whole it is worthless, but it has been made valuable.
An ordinary small piece of paper does not suffice on an envelope, but that little piece of paper that was specially made valuable is!
A stamp does not determine its own value, but that value is determined by the kingdom and so it is with the Christian. He also does not determine his own value, but the value of the Christian is determined by the Kingdom of God.
If you are a 50 cent stamp you should not try to get a 10 kilo pack across the ocean, because you will need many others of 50 cents with you .
And if you are a stamp of 10 guilders then you should not go on a postcard because that is a waste.
A stamp must take the right place. And the Christian too has to take the right place. If I send a stamp on the inside of the envelope, then that does not suffice as postage on the mail item, and when I, as a Christian, only come to the meetings, just to take in, it is not sufficient either.
We have to take the right place, and only God can make it clear to you which place is the right place for you.
A stamp is made to deliver a message. And as a Christian we have heard a message, and we are here to deliver that message to others, to communicate what the sender wants to be known.
You know, I’m happy for the man who’s been there once in my life, and who told me that I had to make a choice. I was raised in a Christian home, and I am grateful for that, but there was a teacher at school who brought me to the point of making a choice, of making a decision. He said, “You must choose. It is not something automatic. You must make a choice”.
I am glad that man said that to me. And if you want people to be happy because you opened your mouth, then you could start to do so.
A stamp can be sent anywhere. If I have a 50 cents stamp, and I stick it on a postcard, and I just want it to slip into the mailbox of my neighbor, it will happen. But if I stick that same stamp next to another, and I write a letter to the other side of the world, he will not protest.
A stamp can be sent anywhere in the world, but a stamp of 65 cents generally stays within the Netherlands.
A stamp does not leave the message before it is transferred.
The stamp remains with the message until that message has reached the addressee; and so we must stick to the message that God has given us. Stay with it, stay where God has put you!
A stamp bears the image of the ruler.
Who is the ruler in your life?
If that is King Jesus, should it not be, that I can see the image of King Jesus in you?
After all, we bear the image of the ruling King don’t we?
When someone asks you and says: Brother, what are you? Then you will not easily say “I am a stamp”. People will also not say so quickly I am a messenger or I am a Christian.
An answer that you may get is: “I am a teacher” or “I am a bricklayer”, but what you are putting forward is, in fact, only your back. That is the gum layer that God has applied, to stick you to your place. By making you a teacher, He has put you in a certain place, and in that place He wants you to show His image.
You cannot ignore it, when you pick up a stamp you will automatically see the queen there. It will not always occur to you that the queen is on it, but she is certainly on it. If you see a Christian, then it should be that you can automatically see Christ Jesus in that person.
But when I have a stamp with a black mark on it, or with the pen scratched through it, it is invalid. It cannot be used anymore. And when you are a Christian who keeps carrying a black spot in your life, then you are also unusable. Then you can no longer be used to convey His message, until that black spot is removed from your life, until we are cleansed by the blood of Jesus
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