There was a tragic true story on November 12, 2015 that went largely unreported in the international media because it was overshadowed by the terrorist attacks in Paris the next day on November 13th which killed 130 people and injured over 400 others. And this probably because it happened somewhere less important than the “West,” the Middle East, in Beirut, Lebanon. It’s a tragic true story with an incredibly hope-inspiring, and life-giving less in the heroism of its protagonist.

 

There were two suicide bombing attacks that day which killed 45 and wounded more than 200 others. Adel Termos was walking in the open-air market with his daughter, when the first suicide bomber detonated his explosives. Amid the instant chaos, Termos somehow managed to spot the second bomber preparing to detonate his vest and made the quick decision to tackle him to the ground. The bomb went off killing them both, but saving countless lives, including his daughter’s.

 

There are many, hundreds of families, who owe their completeness to his sacrifice. In a very real sense, Adel Termos broke the pattern of fallen human inclination towards self-preservation of our own life over the protection of the lives of others. His heroism transcended his desire to preserve his own life, in order to protect/save others.

 

To make that kind of decision in a split second—to decide that you’d rather sacrifice your life to save hundreds than to go back home to your family—to decide that the collective lives of those around you are more precious than your own, instinctively, is something that I think few can ever understand, and even fewer have the courage to act upon…

 

But this is exactly the kind of view of ourselves and of those around us that Jesus calls us to this morning. This is precisely the kind of self-sacrificing service that he calls everyone who would follow him, to. Whether by laying down your life in life for the sake of others as you seek to pour out your life in service to meet the needs of others before yourself, or even by your willingness to lay down your life in death for others should you ever find yourself in that scenario.

 

These are the new, radical values of God’s Kingdom that Jesus introduced. And they are a complete reversal of everything the culture of this world teaches about self-importance, self-worth, and self-focus––which goes hand in hand with our fallen, natural, instinctive, inclination towards putting ourselves over everyone else and anything else to begin with because of sin—

 

No Jesus says my followers are marked by their willingness to serve all others, sacrifice for all others, and be the slave of all others—that’s the measure of kingdom greatness. And Jesus isn’t speaking philosophically like some noble, erudite, rabbi from his ivory tower knowing nothing about personal suffering and sacrifice. He is the ultimate example of selflessness and sacrificial service as he now not only explicitly states the redemptive purpose for which he came down from heaven to earth, but the ultimate self-sacrificing means through which he will accomplish it, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.”

 

And my friends, though we are called to a life of sacrificial service as followers of Jesus and perhaps even a sacrificial death for his sake or the sake of others, his death alone has the power to redeem, and that is precisely why he came—to die in order to redeem many—and we are to follow in his self-sacrificing footsteps by laying down our lives, in life, for others. That’s the measure of greatness in God’s eyes…The greatest follower of Jesus, is the lowest servant—as low Jesus says, as even a slave…Greatness is lowliness. Down is up. Last is first…in the race to kingdom greatness.