This Must Be Stronger Than That

Introduction

In his book, Beautiful Resistance, author Jon Tyson opens up the book with this section:

A Place Called Finkenwalde

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of the most remarkable disciples of Jesus in the 20th century.

His story didn't start in some deeply religious home — he came to faith through exposure, relationships, and an encounter with the beauty of the church that just got him.

By twenty-one he had his doctorate. By his thirties, he was staring down Hitler.

And the German church? It was caving.

Church leaders were handing over to the Führer the loyalties that belong to Christ alone.

One historian put it bluntly — Hitler didn't just want political control. He wanted Germany's soul.

So this wasn't really a political fight. It was a spiritual one.

The takeover accelerated.

A Nazi-backed group seized the German Evangelical Church and started making changes:

exclude non-Aryan clergy

rewrite the liturgy, and

remove the Old Testament from the Bible.

The church was being hollowed out from the inside.

Bonhoeffer saw what was happening. And he saw why — German ministers weren't formed deeply enough to resist.

So in 1935, he did something about it.

He helped launch an underground seminary.

No credentials, no state approval, no safety.

Just a big empty manor house in a rural town called Finkenwalde.

A group of young men soon came.

They prayed. They studied. They confessed sin to one another.

And in the middle of what Bonhoeffer called "the onslaught of hell" — this little place became, for those students, a portal to heaven.

It didn't last. The Gestapo eventually shut it down and arrested more than two dozen of those men.

But before all that — Tyson says

A friend came to visit Finkenwalde, a historian named Wilhelm Niesel.

He was skeptical.

Thought maybe Bonhoeffer was taking this whole thing too far.

So Bonhoeffer took him rowing.

Out on the Oder Sound, they pulled to shore, climbed a small hill, and looked out over a wide field where German fighter planes were taking off and landing — soldiers moving in tight, disciplined formations below.

Bonhoeffer let Niesel take it in. Then he said it:

"You have to be stronger than these tormentors that you find everywhere today."

That was the whole point of Finkenwalde.

The disciples of Jesus had to be more formed, more committed, more surrendered than the soldiers of the Reich. Not louder. Not angrier. Just — stronger.

Discipleship must be stronger than cultural formation.

Loyalty must be stronger than compromise.

This must be stronger than that.

Now, before we go any further, let’s be honest about something:

Every person in this room understands what its like to edit himself. To hold back what he actually things.

To say the safer thing, take the easier road, smile, and nod when something inside him is screaming the opposite.

We’ve probably all done it.

Most of us do it more than we admit.

And you know, this is what make this so hard to talk about:

it doesn’t feel like cowardice when you’re in it.

It feels like wisdom.

Like maturity.

Like keeping the peace.

We tell ourselves we’re being strategic. Diplomatic. We’re just picking our battles.

But at some point, if we’re honest, we have to ask the question Bonhoeffer forced on Niesel overlooking those Nazi planes: Whose kingdom are you actually training for?

The Opinion That Defines You Will Direct You

Let’s go to Galatians 1:10.

Paul is barely past his opening and is already drawing a line in the sand:

Galatians 1:10 CSB

10 For am I now trying to persuade people, or God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Look this is so much more than a gentle nudge.

It’s a hard either/or.

And Paul is writing from experience - because he used to be on the other side of it.

He was Saul of Tarsus - climbing the ladder - collecting approval from all the right people, doing everything the religious establishment expected of him.

He had credentials. He had reputation. He had clout.

And then Jesus met him on a road and wrecked all of it.

After his conversion, Paul had a different question driving his decisions.

Not what will they think?

But what does God say?

This single shift reorganized everything.

His relationships. His risks. His willingness to suffer.

And so for us, we need to see that the opinion that defines you will direct you.

Whatever voice you’re most afraid of disappointing, that’s the voice running your life.

It might be your boss.

It might be your father.

The guys you grew up with.

The version of yourself that you’ve always wanted to be.

Or, it might just be a vague, nameless fear of being seen as not enough.

The thing is, those voices aren’t always wrong about everything.

But they are not qualified to define you.

Only One is.

When we are mostly controlled by the approval of others, we’ve never really settled the question of whose we are.

Identity confusion always leads to approval addiction.

When you don’t know who you are, you let the crowd tell you.

The disciples at Finkenwalde had to settle that question in a dangerous moment.

So do we… just in less dramatic circumstances.

But, don’t let the lack of drama fool you. The stakes are just as real.

The Snare is Subtle, and It’s Already Around Your Ankle

Now, let’s go back to Proverbs:

Proverbs 29:25 CSB

25 The fear of mankind is a snare, but the one who trusts in the Lord is protected.

A snare.

Not a wall.

Not an obvious obstacle you see coming.

A snare:

something hidden

something you walk into without realizing it

something that has you before you’re caught.

I think this is what makes people pleasing so difficult for men specifically.

It rarely shows up looking like weakness.

It shows up looking completely reasonable.

It's the man who watches a close friend heading somewhere destructive — a marriage unraveling, a drinking problem nobody's naming, a decision that's going to cost him everything — and says nothing.

Not because he doesn't care. He cares deeply.

But saying something means risking the friendship, and that's a price he's not sure he's willing to pay.

So he stays quiet and calls it grace. He tells himself it's not his place. But deep down he knows — it's not grace. It's fear.

It's the man who stays quiet when his family needs him to lead. Not absent physically — he's right there at the dinner table, right there on the couch.

But spiritually he's checked out, because leading means being vulnerable, and vulnerable means he might fail, and failing in front of the people who matter most is the scariest thing he can imagine.

So he lets his wife carry it. He tells himself she's better at that stuff anyway. But somewhere underneath that — he knows. So he performs just enough Christianity to feel OK about himself without ever really surrendering to it.

Sound familiar? Because it should. This is the water we swim in.

Now let’s look at something John recorded:

John 12:42–43 CSB

42 Nevertheless, many did believe in him even among the rulers, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, so that they would not be banned from the synagogue. 43 For they loved human praise more than praise from God.

These religious leaders actually did believe in Jesus - but wouldn’t confess it publicly.

Why?

v. 43 - for they loved human praise more than praise from God.

They believed and still stayed silent.

That should shake us.

Because it means intellectual agreement with Jesus isn’t the same as allegiance to Jesus.

You can have correct theology and still be running your life on the fuel of human approval.

The snare is subtle…. and for a lot of men … it is already doing it’s work.

Heaven’s Approval Demands a Different Kind of Training

So, what do we actually do with this?

This is where Bonhoeffer’s image comes back. Feel the weight of it once more:

He’s standing on a hillside, watching disciplined soldiers train for a kingdom of hardness and cruelty.

His answer isn’t despair. It isn’t hand-wringing.

It’s: this must be stronger than that.

Not louder. Not angrier. Stronger.

Now, who is the model for this?

Has anyone ever pulled it off — living completly free from the need for human approval, doing the will of God, no matter the cost?

Yes, One man has. Jesus.

Let’s look at John’s gospel again.

Here, Jesus is right in the middle of a confrontation with religious leaders who were trying to discredit him.

Our Lord says:

John 5:41 CSB

41 “I do not accept glory from people,

I mean … this is just flat out. No hedging. No diplomatic softening.

He wasn’t interested in what they thought of Him.

Not because he was arrogant or care about people.

But because He already knew whose opinion mattered.

He lived His entire life oriented toward one voice - His Father’s. And that settled everything else.

Now, please think about what this looks like in real time:

The crowds loved Him. He didn’t chase it.

They turned on Him - and He didn’t collapse.

The Pharisees tried to publicly shame him - He stood His ground.

The disciples misunderstood him - and he kept going.

Even at Gethsemane, when the weight of what obedience would cost was crushing him - not my will, but yours.

Every. Single. Time. The approval of heaven held.

And then, Hebrews 12:2 tells us how die did it … and why:

Hebrews 12:2 CSB

2 keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

“despising the shame.”

The cross wasn’t just physically brutal - it was designed to humilate.

Public execution.

Nakedness.

Mockery.

The crowd watching and jeering.

The religious leaders smirking.

Every form of human disapproval on display.

And Jesus despised it.

Not because he was numb to it… but because what was set before him was more real than what surrounded him.

The approval of heaven was so solid, so certain, and so satisfying, that the shame of the cross lost its power to define him.

That’s the model. That is what we’re being called to.

And by the way, this isn’t about becoming some austere, joyless religious machine.

The disciples at Finkenwalde laughed. Played music. Had fun together.

But underneath all of that was a settled quality.

A rootedness.

They knew whose they were.

So the opinions of the Reich - as terrifying as they were - didn’t get the final word.

That settledness came from looking at Jesus. It always does.

What This Looks Like Practically:

Building a prayer life real enough to actually change you - not just a check box.

Having relationships where you’re not performing - you’re exhibiting the truth about yourself.

Slowing down your decisions enough to ask what does God actually want here before you ask what will this cost me socially?

Paul called this being a servant of Christ.

Bonhoeffer called it costly discipleship.

Jesus just called it following him.

And the ones who do it, the men who get so formed by the approval of heaven that the applause of men loses its grip, those men become free in a way most people never experience.

They are:

Free to speak when silence is easier.

Free to stand when sitting down costs nothing.

Free to be exactly who God made them to be, regardless of who’s watching of what they think.

Now that’s worth training for.

That’s worth the cost.

This must be stronger than that.

As We Close

I want to take you back to that hillside one more time:

Bonhoeffer standing there.

The planes. The solders. The machinery of a kingdom built on fear and force and the hunger for human power.

And watching it all - he’s around 30 years old - and saying “You have to be stronger than these tormentors.”

He wasn’t talking about muscles.

He wasn’t talking aboutg strategy or politics or winning a culture war.

He was talking about formation.

And what happens in the hidden places in a man’s life

in his prayer

his surrender

his willingness to be defined by God rather than the crowd.

Bonhoeffer knew what was coming.

He knew the cost.

And he paid it.

April 9, 1945, three weeks before the war ended, he was hanged at Flossenburg concentration camp.

The camp doctor who witnessed it wrote afterward that he had never seen a man die so entirely at peace. So free.

That is what living for the approval of heaven does for a man. Even at the end.

Here’s the question:

Whose approval are you actually living for?

Not whose approval do you want to live for?

Not what you’d say in a bible class or write on a card at a men’s retreat.

I mean actually, … when the decision is in front of you and something is at stake, whose voice are you most afraid of disappointing?

Because that voice is running your life. Whether you’ve named it or not.

Maybe its a father whose approval you’ve been chasing for your whole life and never quite caught.

Maybe its your peers at work who’d look at you differently if they knew what you actually believed.

Maybe its the version of yourself you’ve been performing for so long that you’re not even sure whos underneath it.

Maybe its a religious crowd - people in a church building - whose opinion of you matters more than it should.

Jesus looked at men like us - religious, sincere, and genuine believers, and said:

“I do not accept glory from human beings.”

And then he lived it all the way to the cross.

Despising the shame.

Fixed on his father’s face.

That’s the model. That’s the man we’re called to become.

A moment of self-examination

Where in my life am I staying silent when God is calling me to speak?

Is it at work? Home? In a friendship where the truth needs to be said and you keep swallowing it because the cost feels too high?

Where am I performing Christianity rather than actually surrendering it?

There’s a version of church life that’s really just reputation management.

You show up, say the right things, maintain the image.

But underneath, nothing’s really been surrendered. And you know it.

What decision have I been avoiding because of what someone might think?

Most of us have one.

A conversation we keep putting off.

A step of obedience that’s been sitting in front of us, and we haven’t taken it because we’re waiting for it to feel safer.

If the approval of heaven were truly enough, what would I do differently tomorrow?

The Challenge

Bonhoeffer built Finkenwalde because he believed that disciples of Jesus had to be more formed than the forces arrayed against them. Not perfect. Not superhuman. Just — deeper. More rooted. More anchored in whose they were than in what the world thought of them.

That's the invitation today.

Not a program. Not a list of rules. Just a decision — maybe the most important one you'll make this weekend — to stop auditioning for the approval of people and start living for an audience of One.

The crowd will shift. It always does. Palm Sunday becomes Good Friday faster than anyone expects. The people cheering your name today may not be there tomorrow — and that's okay, because their applause was never supposed to hold you anyway.

But the approval of heaven? That holds. Through failure, through cost, through the moments when obedience is lonely and nobody's watching and there's no recognition coming.

It held for Bonhoeffer in a prison cell.

It held for Paul in chains.

It held for Jesus on a cross.

And it will hold for you.

The applause of men is loud — but it's temporary.

The approval of heaven is quiet — but it's eternal.

This must be stronger than that.