Heroes of the Faith Week 1

Bonhoeffer

_____________________________________________

SETTING THE TABLE:

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

On may 8, 1945, Germany surrendered to the Allied forces… WW2 would almost be over.

3 weeks earlier, on April 9, 1945, after spending almost 2 years in prison..

On April 9, 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was exectued by hanging directly ordered by Adolf Hitler himself.

One of Hitler’s last acts as dictator Fuhrer of Germany was to ruthlessly kill the man Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Why?

How could a man like Bonhoeffer gain singular focus of Hitler who was no doubt aware he was about to lose on the world stage?

Philippians 1:21 “21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

Bonhoeffer was an incredible man.

I highly recommend at some point in your life that you read about him and his Faith in God.

He was born in 1906 and when he was hung at the end of WW2, he was just 39 years old.

As I get older and I read things like this, my mind is drawn to a sense of sadness, urgency, and clarity.

I am sad, because I realize how impact-full men have been in the past who were my age or even younger.

I am drawn to urgency, because I also know none of us are guaranteed 39 years of life, so what are we doing with the time God has given us?

And I am drawn to clarity, that I need to stay locked in every day to living for one singular focus.

Jesus.

It’s all about Him.

New City Catechism’s is a helpful resource to help us stay focused on Christ.

Their first catechism to remember is this:

What is our only hope in life and death?

Answer: That we are not our own but belong to God.

Romans 14:7–8 “7 For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. 8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”

Bonhoeffer’s life is a mirror that points to all of this tonight.

Bonhoeffer’s life revolves around several questions:

What is evil and how should we as Christians deal with evil?

What is discipleship? What is a “Cultural Christian”?

His phrase for this was “cheap grace.”

People who claim to follow Jesus, but show no evidence of Jesus in the way they live their lives.

What intrigued me so much about Bonhoeffer is that I saw the whole gambit of Christian growing up.

I saw people who weren’t honest with me and weren’t honest with themselves.

If you ask them, they say they love Jesus, but really, there’s nothing going on in there.

Bonhoeffer was not one of these people.

He put everything on the line for what He believed about God.

This is a man who faced His faith in the mirror and understood Paul’s words, “To live is Christ and to die is gain.”

DIETRICH’s FAMILY

Now, Dietrich was an incredible Bonhoeffer amidst other incredible people in his family.

His dad, Karl, was the most famous Psychiatrist in Germany for half a century in Germany.

His mom, had a teaching degree before that was normal. However, she used it to homeschool all 8 of her children.

His brother Karl Friedrich, was a Physicist involved in splitting the atom with Max Planck and ALbert Einstein.

And believe it or not, his brothers and sisters continue to impress from there.

For all the Bonhoeffer kids, one thing was known with their day,

“Sloppy thinking was not to be tolerated.”

Everything much be thought through, evidence gathered, and then follow the facts to their logical conclusion.

Ideas must be tried and tested.

Even before Dietrich found faith in God, He learned the philosophy that:

if one was unprepared to live out what one claimed to believe, perhaps one didn’t believe what one claimed after all!

DIETRICH IN AMERICA:

At 18, Dietrich began to ask one of the most significant questions that dominated his life.

“What is the church?”

The 1930s, proved to be an impactful decade for Dietrich.

At age 24 in 1930, He already had a PhD in Germany, but decided to travel to the USA to attend Union Theological Seminary in NYC.

SIDE NOTE: Part of the reasoning for this was because even though he was qualified and academically acomplished, Bonhoeffer could not teach theology in German universities until he was 25 years old. Therefore, he opted to continue his education abroad. As an added benefit, he wanted to see the USA and this was an opportunity for him to do so.

This trip, which was largely for fun, ended up being pivotal in Bonhoeffer’s life story.

He was invited to attend church at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem which was primarily an African American church.

While going there, Bonhoeffer saw men and women who took their faith seriously.

They didn’t just believe in God with their words, they acted on their belief and faith.

It was through this church that Bonhoeffer shifted his thinking away from teaching theology in a university and rather becoming a pastor.

BACK IN GERMANY:

When Bonhoeffer went back to Germany in 1931, Bonhoeffer began teaching in Berlin University.

He became popular because he referred to the Bible as “The Word of God.” as though God was alive and speaking to us through His Word, the Bible.

This was unique in 1930s Germany.

In January 1933, Bonhoeffer made a speech on the radio where he stated “true authority much, by definition be submitted to a higher authority — God --- and true leadership must be servant leadership.”

This speech occurred 2 days before Hitler became leader of Germany.

Bonhoeffer was publically on record against Hitler.

As Hitler gained power, he required to German church (which was primarily Lutheran) to remove all Jewish people.

This struck a chord with Bonhoeffer because of his experiences in USA at Abyssinian Baptist Church.

He, and a number of other pastors left the German church, and formed instead the Confessing Church.

This again, caused quite a stir culturally.

Not everyone in the confessing church though saw the dangers coming to Germany.

One of Bonhoeffer’s friends and pastors (Martin Niemoller) said this:

He said later in life,

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”

USA THEN GERMANY AGAIN:

In 1935, Germany continued to deteriorate and Christians were more and more driven to the shadows.

In 1935, Bonhoeffer began discipling men how to study God’s Word and how to pray.

This began at Finkenwalde until the Gestapo shut them down and then they had to move the seminary to different places for meeting every week to avoid the Gestapo.

Over the next 4 years, tensions only increased and Bonhoeffer stood firm for the gospel and gave a voice to the voiceless in Germany.

However, in June 1939, tensions were high and his life was threatened so he sailed to the USA once again to teach at Union Seminary in NYC.

However, this is my favorite part of his story.

He was so burdened for his people, He could not stay.

Knowing he would likely die, he set sail back to Germany only 26 days after arriving.

Knowing He could not work in the church.

Bonhoeffer more or less adopted the philosophy keep your friends close and your enemies closer…

Dietrich’s brother in law, Dohnanyi was in the Germany military intelligence and he got Bonhoeffer a job.

While in the eyes of Hitler and the government, Bonhoeffer was now on their side, quite the opposite was true.

Bonhoeffer was a spy against his own country.

Working for the Abwehr (military intelligence), he was able to travel between Sweden and Switzerland and carry vital information to the allies about inner workings of German Government.

However, through this, he was eventually caught in 1943, spent 2 years in prison.

While there in prison, the Valkyrie plot occured thanks to Bonhoeffer’s intelligence and work behind the scenes.

3 weeks before Hitler would surrender in May of 1945, Bonhoeffer was hung as a direct order from Hitler himself.

Through his life though this is what we should know.

Bonhoeffer was first devoted to the gospel.

Second, Bonhoeffer was a voice for the voiceless. He was unique in that God raised him up in NAZI germany to change the lives of many people, especially young men who were discipled.

Third, in the face of certain danger and likely death, Bonhoeffer never stopped discipling. He shared the gospel, and was convinced of Romans 14:7–8 “7 For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. 8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”

How will that affect us then?

Is the gospel worth the cost to you that no matter what life has, no matter what circumstance, the gospel is enough?

Bonhoeffer saw cultural Christianity all around him, and instead, he gave his life to call people out of shallow faith and into the true faith of Christ.

He was willing to set comfort aside and rather commit to the gospel.

Let’s split into groups tonight and discuss this further.