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Since 1914, 1,275,186 British soldiers have been killed in action, including more recently 179 in Iraq and 456 in Afghanistan. What would you be willing to lay down your life for?

One British soldier willingly risked his life in Afghanistan by covering a booby-trap bomb with his body to try to save a wounded comrade. Warrant Officer Class One Andy Peat heroically used himself as a human shield to protect rescuers from triggering another improvised explosive device or IED. The bomb disposal expert positioned himself just a foot above the explosive so colleagues could evacuate the Danish casualty. Stretcher bearers had to pass so close to the Taliban bomb that WO1 Peat feared they would accidentally step on it unless he screened it with his body. Despite knowing he would bear the brunt of any blast the 39-year-old remained motionless until the soldiers had clambered over him. Commanders said his heroism 'saved a number of lives'. WO1 Peat was supporting a joint Danish-Afghan patrol when the group was blasted by an IED in Helmand. The explosion inflicted terrible injuries on Oversergeant Rene Brink Jakobsen, a member of the Danish Special Forces, who lost both legs and an arm. WO1 Peat discovered the unit was surrounded by at least ten more IEDs – including one underneath the injured soldier.

Sergeant Glen Gardiner of 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, was awarded the MC for acting with complete disregard for his own safety by running through small arms and grenade fire to help a shot Afghan soldier. Gardiner was blown off his feet by a grenade and two rounds passed through his backpack. Gardiner said:

He was about 20 metres away, the only cover to get to him was through the irrigation ditch which was filled with water to just below the knees. By the time I got to him he'd lost a lot of blood. The bullet had taken out his Adam's apple and voice box. At first I just clamped his neck to staunch the wound before the medic arrived.

How would you react in such situations? What would you be willing to lay down your life for? What is it that makes laying down your life worthwhile? When Jesus was on the point of laying down his life, he challenged his disciples to be ready to do the same. Look at John 15.12-14:

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.

What do we make of that for our own lives? Because the fact is, this is a challenge not just for those disciples, or for our armed forces, but for us today – you and me – in our world of Facebook, fashion, foodie programmes and football. Well our Bible passage makes three key points. First:

1. The Greatest Love is to Lay Down your Life for your Friends

It's what Jesus says in v13:

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

To love in the sense that Jesus speaks of here is freely to put the interests of others before your own, for the sake of their welfare. It's a self-sacrificial love. Love isn't warm feelings. Nor is it acting in the interests of others just because we're being forced to do so by our commanding officer. It's not giving something to others for the sake of what we'll get back, whether a hero's welcome or a Military Cross. When Jesus says that the greatest love is to lay down your life for your friends, he's saying that the greatest love puts no ceiling on what it's prepared to give for the sake of others. It lays down no limit on how far it will go in purposeful self-sacrifice. So we're not talking about futile gestures. We're not talking about a pointless death. Rather, this kind of love engages in purposeful self-sacrifice. But the greatest love is ready to give everything, even to die if necessary. All other forms of love, the kinds with which we're most familiar, are mixed with earth-bound self-interest. The greatest love sets aside self-interest.

Most warfare is conducted with very mixed motives, but such love is at times exemplified in the heat of battle. Lance Corporal James Ashworth, 23, was on patrol with the Reconnaissance Platoon of 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards in Helmand province when they were engaged in battle with Taliban fighters. Fighting inside a number of enemy-held compounds, he intentionally put himself in the line of fire, saving the lives of others as a result. He was said to have been at pains to ensure no civilians were at risk of being hit, but he himself was killed by the blast from a grenade. His comrade said, "Selfless, brave, courageous; words like these don't come close to what Ash demonstrated that day." He didn't spare himself.

The greatest love, says Jesus, is to lay down your life for your friends. So what does that mean for us? To begin with, we need to accept Jesus' standard as the benchmark of true love. We need to set our sights on the target that Jesus has given us. What is real love? It is purposeful self-sacrifice, even to the point of death. Once we've accepted that benchmark, then we can begin to assess the way we love against it. We need to be very frank with ourselves. Are we reluctant to love like that? Maybe we'll find that there are strict limits to how far we're prepared to go for the sake others - whether they're our friends or not. But once we've seen ourselves clearly, what do we do next? We look at Jesus. And the next point that needs to be made is this:

2. Jesus Laid Down his Life for his Enemies

Jesus practiced what he preached, even to the point of dying for those who are deeply hostile towards him. So he says in John 15.12:

Love one another as I have loved you.

And how has he loved us? Well three Bible verses that made a deep impression on me and led me to put my faith in Christ were Romans 5.7-10:

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us... while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son...

You see, there's a war on, now, and you and I are caught up in it. It's the war to end all wars. It's the war that God's fighting again sin, Satan and death. Jesus has fought for us. He's died for us, not in a futile gesture, but for a purpose. He died to save us from our sin and bring us to God, and to snatch us out of the clutches of Satan and out of the jaws of hell.

And Jesus loved his enemies as he did his friends. He loved those who hated him, even as he loved those who followed him. At the end even his so called friends betrayed him, fled from him and denied him. "We were God's enemies" says Paul. That includes all of us. But Jesus' love was the greatest love - he laid down his life for his enemies. Jesus died in order to turn his enemies into his friends. He died to liberate us from sin and death and hell.

Each year the liberation of France following the D Day landings is commemorated. Many laid down their lives to that end. In fact 53,700 Allied servicemen were killed during The Battle of Normandy. But even the sacrifices are overshadowed by Jesus' once for all sacrifice. He died to liberate us. On the cross he won the decisive victory. But the struggle continues rather like the continued struggle against the enemy following the crucial Battle of Normandy until the end of WW2. We need to see the reality of that continuing spiritual warfare amidst the peaceful prosperity that many of us take for granted. We need to accept that by nature we're enemies of Jesus. We're on the wrong side. We need to see that Jesus has paid the price of our hostility. If you're still his enemy, then believe that he died for you, and become his friend today. If you're already his friend, then ask yourself, 'How does a friend of Jesus live and love?' Which brings us to my third and final point:

3. We are Friends of Jesus if we Love as he did

That's what Jesus is saying here in John's Gospel, v14:

You are my friends if you do what I command.

And what is it that Jesus commands? Verse 12 tells us:

This is my commandment: Love one another as I have loved you.

Now please don't misunderstand this. It's not that we become friends of Jesus by loving like him. We become his friends only by grace (God's Riches At Christ's Expense) through faith in him and not by works. But when we become friends of Jesus, he changes us from within. We have a new nature. That new nature is like Jesus. It has his characteristics. It gives us the capacity for purposeful self-sacrifice. Selfishness is still alive within us, even if it's no longer at the very core of our being. There's still a great struggle within us between self-centredness and our readiness for sacrificial service of others. We still have a lot to learn about living a life of the greatest love. It's the living friendship of Jesus, and the power of his Spirit within us, which enable us to do that.

A medical officer who closely observed the aircrews of Bomber Command came to the conclusion that we each have a finite stock of courage. The battle-hardened veteran was a mythical figure: sustained exposure to danger didn't harden a soldier but eroded his limited resources. What armed forces needed was a system of rotation in and out of battle which eked out that stock of courage. Our resources of the greatest love are severely limited, if not non-existent. But the resources of Jesus are unlimited. If we're to live and love like him, we need to be drawing on his resources and not relying on our own. We need to fight against the selfishness that persists within us. Again and again we must commit ourselves to lives of purposeful self-sacrifice for the sake of others. And we need to know that we can only live like that if we stay close to Jesus - depending on him, trusting him, drawing strength from him. Jesus says earlier in John 15.5:

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

In John 15.16 Jesus says that he chooses and appoints his disciples to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. And with that context in mind he continues in verse 16 to remind us of the power of prayer to that end. Look at what Jesus says:

So that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

Sustaining a life of daily giving to others is in some ways as difficult as being ready literally to die. The Apostle Paul wrote (Galatians 6): "Do not grow weary in doing good." And he added "do good to everyone [note that] and especially to those who are of the household of faith". And so to our Christian brothers and sisters caught up in the war zones of Syria, Iraq and beyond. Corporal Martin Windmill, 24, of 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, was awarded the MC for taking on two enemy positions in Afghanistan despite a deep shrapnel wound in his thigh, to protect two fellow soldiers. Windmill said:

At the time my wound wasn't hurting, I still had both my legs, and there wasn't blood spurting out so I was all right to carry on." 

But it's not just the military who are giving their lives around the world to help and protect people from Islamists. The Barnabas Fund, which we are supporting in our World Mission Gift Week from today, reports that in Berlin Pastor Gottfried Martens is helping Syrian Christians who are fleeing the asylum centres because of the constant threat of attack under which they often find themselves from fundamentalist Muslims. They are regularly abused, ostracised and even physically attacked. One UK Christian social reformer from the past, Lord Shaftesbury, worked tirelessly to improve the conditions of the deserving poor. Like Pastor Martens he was motivated by his faith in Christ. As an elderly man he once said:

If I followed my own inclination I would sit in my armchair and take it easy for the rest of my life. But I dare not do it. I must work as long as life lasts.

The greatest love is to lay down your life for your friends. Jesus laid down his life for his enemies. We are his friends, he says, if we love as he did - laying down our lives for others. It's possible that one or more of us here this morning may literally be called upon to die for the sake of Christ. Each of us must reckon with that possibility. All of us are called upon to love like Jesus, in his strength, day in and day out, until there is no more breath in our bodies.

Will we lay down our lives for Jesus? Will we lay down our lives for our friends? Will we lay down our lives for the enemies of Jesus? Because Jesus has laid down his life for us.