Ten years ago, someone at a recovery meeting said something that changed the trajectory of a life: "coffee makers make it." It sounds almost silly on the surface. But for someone freshly out of rehab, still stunned that Christ had shown up and proven himself real, those four words became an anchor. After a life that felt like one long disaster, the idea of finally making it was irresistible. So the instruction was simple: make the coffee.

That's where it started - not with a grand calling or a stage, but with a coffee pot. Soon it turned into more: an old, faded sign for a Thanksgiving gathering caught the eye of a former graphic design student, and an offer was made - "I could redraw that for you." Sobriety held, a sponsor came alongside, and eventually there were other men to sponsor, other people to walk toward freedom.

That's the pattern in Proverbs 18:16: "A man's gift makes room for him and brings him before the great." Every gift God places in us, however small, is a door - not meant to sit closed. There's a difference, though, between simply making it and becoming a servant. Every child of God makes it; Christ holds on to every one the Father has drawn to him. Servants go further - which is the real question worth sitting with: not just whether you're saved, but whether you're willing to serve, even to the point of giving everything, the way Christ did.

Freedom Means You Choose How You Serve

Hebrews 13:16 puts it plainly: "Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God." God made every believer differently, but each of us holds the same three resources - time, talent, and treasure. All of it is on loan, and all of it is easy to hoard.

Sharing doesn't come naturally, even with a heart made new in Christ. Watch a toddler cling to a favorite toy and you'll see how the human heart still tends to operate - out of fear of not getting what we want, or losing what we already have. Jonah knew that fear well, running toward Tarshish rather than the calling God gave him in Nineveh. Fear delays obedience; it doesn't cancel it. The same fear shows up with treasure. Giving isn't about hitting some Old Testament tithing percentage; it's giving generously from the abundance God has already poured out.

A University of Zurich study from 2017 tracked participants who committed to spending money on others using fMRI scans. Even small acts of generosity - or simply planning to give - triggered neural changes in the brain, significantly boosting self-reported happiness.

Giving was never meant to be a grim duty; it's how we were designed. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:58, our labor in the Lord is never in vain - every gift given, however small, is doing something, shaping a heart if nothing else.

Freedom Means You Choose the Capacity in Which You Serve

Ask most believers if they'd like to be great in the kingdom, and the hands go up quickly. Matthew 20:20-28 tells of a mother - Salome, mother of James and John, the "sons of thunder" - who asked Jesus that her sons sit at his right and left hand in his kingdom. "You do not know what you are asking," Jesus answered. "Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?" The other ten disciples were indignant, not because the request was wrong, but because someone else had asked it first. Jesus used the moment to overturn the whole idea of greatness.

"It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Greatness in the kingdom doesn't look like proximity to power - it looks like servanthood, taken all the way to laying a life down. James and John did, eventually, receive the greatness they'd asked for; both gave their lives for the gospel. Choosing our capacity to serve doesn't mean the choice comes without cost.

Freedom Means You Choose Why You Serve

Motive matters as much as method. Genesis 8:15-20 tells of Noah stepping off the ark after a year watching the world drown - and the first thing he does is build an altar and sacrifice to the God who spared him. Gratitude was the impulse behind the gift. Reason one to serve: love and gratitude for what God has already done.

Reason two is love for people. 1 Peter 4:10 says, "As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace." And 1 John 4:19: "We love because he first loved us." Even a believer walking through a hard season can find her deepest prayer is simply to be well enough to serve her friends again - proof the desire to serve isn't dependent on easy circumstances.

Reason three is simpler still: we are commanded to. God doesn't need any of us, but in his mercy he chooses to use broken people anyway. Picture someone who slips into the back row late, knowing almost no one - until they take up a small role serving, and isolation gives way to community. That's what serving does.

Jesus Paid It All

Colossians 3:1-2 draws it back to center: "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth." Time, talent, and treasure are real, but they're not the final things - just tools of gratitude for the one who gave everything first. Jesus paid it all, and all to him is owed. That's the freedom described here: not a freedom that lets us walk away from responsibility, but the greater freedom to choose how, where, and why we give ourselves away.

Take the invitation seriously this week. Say what a nervous newcomer once said over a coffee pot: here I am. Use me.

▶ Watch the Full Message: Freedom to Serve Christ

The Christmas story most people know begins with a star over Bethlehem, shepherds in the fields, and a baby in a manger. But Revelation 12 tells a different version - one that begins long before that night in Judea and stretches forward to the end of time itself. There is no silent night here, no lullabies, no wise men bearing gifts. Instead, there is a woman clothed with the sun, a great red dragon standing ready to devour her child the moment He is born, and a cosmic war of staggering proportions. And yet, at the heart of it all, the message is exactly the same: God keeps His promises, and Jesus wins.

God Sent a Savior Just As He Promised

The biblical Christmas story doesn't begin in Bethlehem. It begins in a garden called Eden, where our original parents yielded to the temptation of the ancient serpent - Satan - and all of creation fell with them. But even there, in the wreckage of the fall, God made a promise. He said to the serpent in Genesis 3:15, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." Theologians call this the proto-evangelium - the first gospel. It would be confirmed again to Abraham in Genesis 12 and to David in 2 Samuel 7. What we read in Revelation 12 is nothing less than its cosmic fulfillment.

The woman clothed with the sun in verse 1 is best understood as the entirety of God's people - the consummation of Israel, both Jew and Gentile together, as Paul describes in Romans 11. She is pregnant, crying out in labor pain, longing for the Messiah. And in verse 4, the great red dragon takes his position directly in front of her, poised to devour her child the moment He is born. This is the Christmas story from heaven's vantage point - not cozy and quiet, but fierce, urgent, and eternal.

From Genesis 3 forward, Satan has worked relentlessly to prevent or destroy the promised offspring. He moved Cain to kill Abel (1 John 3), Pharaoh to slaughter Hebrew baby boys (Exodus 1-2), Saul to hunt David (1 Samuel 18), Haman to plot genocide against God's people (Esther), and Herod to massacre the innocents of Bethlehem (Matthew 2). The attempt is not new. The fury of the dragon is ancient. But here is the headline of Revelation 12: in all of his attempts throughout world history, the dragon has failed. He failed then. He is failing now. He will fail forever.

Because Jesus defanged the great red dragon.

The birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem inaugurated the death of the ancient serpent, exactly as God had promised back in Genesis 3:15. Verse 5 captures the entire arc of the first coming in one sweeping line - the child was born, and "her child was caught up to God and to his throne." His birth, perfect life, atoning death, resurrection, and ascension are compressed into a single verse. And the ascension is the unquestionable proof that Satan was defeated. The devil could not prevent the resurrection. He could not stop the exaltation. Jesus is right now seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for His people. Satan coveted that throne. Jesus occupies it.

God Has Accomplished a Salvation That Is Certain

In verses 7-12, the scene shifts to open war in heaven. Michael and his angels fight the dragon, and the dragon is cast down - thrown to the earth, stripped of his place before God. And then one of the most beautiful hymns in all of Scripture rings out across the passage:

"Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down… And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death." - Revelation 12:10-11

This is the bedrock of Christian assurance. When Satan accuses you - and he will - you can look him in the eye and say, "You're right. I am a sinner. But I have a Savior greater than my sin." Your salvation has been signed, sealed, and settled. Not by anything you have done, but by what He has done. We have not been forgiven and redeemed because of who we are; we have been forgiven and redeemed because of who Jesus is and what He has done for us. You did not save yourself. He saved you. And what God has secured, no dragon can steal away.

It is worth pausing to consider the root cause of Satan's fall: pride. C.S. Lewis wrote that pride is "the sin that makes all other sins seem like mere flea bites." Augustine called it "the pregnant mother that gives birth to all sin." Satan fell because he wanted to be God. And pride always results in disgrace and dishonor, because it is, at its core, idolatrous ambition.

Jesus, on the other hand - fully God, holding all authority, deserving every crown - humbled Himself to the point of death on a cross. And the Father honored Him for it. The lesson embedded in the incarnation is one the whole world needs to hear: the way up is always found in a willingness to go down.

God Provides All We Need in the War Against Satan

The final section of Revelation 12 shows the dragon's fury redirected toward the woman and "the rest of her offspring" - every believer who keeps the commandments of God and holds to the testimony of Jesus. Satan cannot destroy the church. But he fights dirty, and the battle is real. World wars, the destruction of families and marriages, violence against children, the assassination of God's servants, holocausts and genocides and school shootings - it can seem, at times, that hell itself has come to earth. And the reason, Revelation 12 makes plain, is that a defeated dragon is still a raging dragon.

But the good news woven throughout this passage is that God provides for His people in the wilderness. He gives eagle's wings to those who are pursued (Exodus 19:4). He nourishes them. He sustains and refines them. He does not abandon them in the hard seasons - He meets them there. The wilderness is not a sign of His absence; it is a place of His provision, His protection, and His transforming grace.

Maybe you're in the wilderness right now. Whatever that looks like, the promise of Revelation 12 is that God has prepared a place for His people, and He will sustain them to the end. Satan will not succeed. His time is short, and his defeat is certain.

The final chapter of the cosmic war has not yet been written in visible history - but its outcome is not in doubt. An empty cross and an empty tomb sealed the dragon's fate. As Charles Wesley wrote in his great hymn:

Born thy people to deliver, Born a child, and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever, Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.
By Thine own eternal Spirit, Rule in all our hearts alone;
By Thine all sufficient merit, Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

Satan has been defeated. Jesus is winning. And Jesus wins. That is the apocalyptic Christmas story - and it is the only one that ends in glory.

This message was first preached on Father's Day, yet one of the men held up that morning never had the chance to become a father himself. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor and theologian who resisted Nazism, hoped for a family of his own, but God's plan had a different path. He joined the resistance against Hitler, was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943, and was hanged at Flossenbürg on April 9, 1945, days before the camp was liberated.

Those who witnessed his final hours never forgot them. Before climbing the steps to the gallows, he spoke his last recorded words to a friend:

"This is the end, but for me, it's the beginning of life."

The camp doctor who watched him pray said he had hardly ever seen a man die so submissive to God's will.

History is full of such witnesses, men and women who have sealed their testimony with blood, and Scripture promises many more. The church of Jesus Christ has always been built on the blood of the martyrs. There are only two kingdoms here, Christ's and the world's, and though the world may celebrate when it thinks it has silenced God's witnesses, He honors their deaths for His kingdom and glory. That truth sits at the heart of Revelation 11, part of the long interlude running from chapters 10 through 14, where God's people, protected spiritually, remain vulnerable to persecution. Five truths rise to the surface here that every believer needs to hear.

God's Sovereign Plan Marches On Despite Opposition

John is handed a measuring rod and told to measure God's temple and count those who worship there (Revelation 11:1-2), echoing Ezekiel 40-42 and carrying the idea of ownership and protection. The temple motif runs throughout Scripture, from Jesus identifying Himself with it (John 2:19-22) to believers being called temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Scholars disagree on the precise referent, but the details matter less than the certainty beneath them: sinful humanity has its say for a day, but the Lord God Almighty has His say for all eternity.

We Have God's Promise of Protection to Complete Our Ministry

God gives the holy city over to the nations to be trampled for three and a half years, yet in that same breath He raises up two witnesses, clothed in sackcloth, empowered to prophesy (Revelation 11:3-7). They come in the spirit of Moses and Elijah, pictured as two olive trees and two lampstands, light-bearers anointed by the same Spirit at work in every believer, just as Jesus described His own followers:

"You are the light of the world… let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."
Matthew 5:14, 16, ESV

Whoever these witnesses represent, the principle holds for every generation: God's Spirit empowers His people to finish the ministry He has given them, then, now, until history's climax.

We Can Expect Persecution for Telling the Truth

When their testimony is finished, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit makes war on the witnesses and kills them, leaving their bodies in the street while the world rejoices and exchanges gifts (Revelation 11:7-10). Telling the truth as citizens of Christ's kingdom, we should expect such opposition. Missionary Jim Elliot, martyred in his twenties serving the Huaorani people of Ecuador, wrote to his parents before his death:

"Remember you are immortal until your work is done. But don't let the sand of time get into the eyes of your vision to reach those who still sit in darkness. They simply must hear."
- Jim Elliot

His wife, Elisabeth Elliot, later returned to live among the very people who killed her husband, faithfully serving them the rest of her life.

Jesus told His followers plainly that the world hates them because they no longer belong to it (John 15:18-20). Revelation 11:10 even pictures unbelievers celebrating the witnesses' deaths, call it, on this Father's Day, fittingly, Dead Witnesses Day. It is a stunning indictment of human depravity that their deaths could ever be cause for joy. And yet, here is the good news.

We Can Be Assured God Will Honor Our Faithful Service

After three and a half days, breath from God enters the witnesses, and they stand on their feet before being called up into heaven (Revelation 11:11-14), resurrection language echoing Ezekiel's valley of dry bones. Paul's reminder applies directly: vengeance belongs to the Lord, not us (Romans 12:19). God's payday is certain; He vindicates those who serve Him and deals justly with those who reject Him.

We Can Be Certain God's Kingdom Will Come and He Will Be Glorified

The chapter closes with the seventh trumpet and a declaration heaven has waited for:

"The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever."
Revelation 11:15, ESV

words later immortalized in Handel's Messiah. The twenty-four elders fall on their faces in worship as the nations' rage meets God's righteous wrath and His temple opens to reveal the ark of the covenant. Because of the Lamb's redemptive work, every believer now shares the access once reserved for the high priest alone.

This is the very prayer Jesus taught us to pray, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10), and in Revelation 11, that day arrives. Every reader stands on one side or the other, a trophy of God's grace or a trophy of His wrath, and there is no more important question to settle.

The empty tomb still stands as a perpetual monument to this truth: Jesus wins, and He is winning today. Yes, the world will oppose and even mock faithfulness. But a resurrection day is coming, a kingdom is arriving, and a reward awaits every servant who reveres His name. To every father, and every faithful witness: keep on, press on, and proclaim His gospel. He is worth all of it.

Watch the full message: Happy Dead Witnesses Day - Revelation 11:1-19