00:00:00 Jeromy Johnson: Hey, guys, this is Jeremy. Is it okay if we do things a bit differently for this episode? Thanks. I didn't think that you would mind. So first you're going to hear a monologue, which is basically just a quick nine minute reflection on one of Jesus's stories that he told to make a very powerful point. Then you will hear my friend Jonathan's immediate reaction and our conversation that follows. You'll want to listen to both parts. So let's begin. 

There's a story Jesus told that keeps haunting me. A father throws a party for his lost son, and everyone's invited. But one person chooses to stay outside. The good son, the faithful one. He won't step in because grace feels too unfair. Maybe that's what hell really looks like. Not flames and punishment, but a porch we choose when love feels too generous. This episode is called Hell's Choosing the porch over the party. It's about the danger of loving God, yet hating his generosity. First you're going to hear a monologue. My reflection on the older brother, the offended heart, and the upside down grace. Then a conversation with my friend Jonathan Brink as we wrestle with what it means to say yes to a love that never runs out. 

I'm your host, Jeremy Johnson. You're listening to Grace. 

There's a story, a parable that Jesus told that most of us know too well, so well that we've stopped hearing it. It's about two sons. One stayed home, the other took off and ran away. 

There's a moment in this famous story that does not get enough attention, though. It's not the wild younger brother, the prodigal, who runs off and wrecks his life. It's the one who stayed home. The good son. The faithful one. Because I think he's the one who might be in more trouble than we realize. 

You see, the younger son leaves with a massive inheritance and spends every dime on booze, sex, bad friends, and bad choices. He's reckless, unashamed, and a walking tabloid headline. He burns through grace like it's gasoline. 

And the older brother. Steady, reliable. He's in the fields before sunrise and home after dark. He's never missed a tithe. He's the kind of son church folk brag about. 

Then the younger one comes crawling home, broken, smelling like pigs, carrying shame like it's a second skin. And the father, he doesn't punish him. He throws a party. The other brother stands outside, jaw locked, arms crossed, thinking, what in God's name is this nonsense? 

I think it's important to read the passage about the older brother's reactions. So here we go. 

The older son had been out in the field, but when he came near the house, he heard the music and dancing. So he called one of the servants over and asked, what's going on here? The servant answered, your brother has come home safe and sound, and your father has ordered us to kill the best calf. 

The older brother got so angry that he would not even go into the house, but his father came out and begged him to go in. 

He said to his father, "For years I have worked for you like a slave, and I've always obeyed you, but you have never given me even a little goat, so that I could have a dinner for my friends. This other son of yours..." (Notice how he doesn't even call him his brother) "...This other son of yours wasted your money on prostitutes. And now that he has come home, you ordered the best calf to be killed for a feast." 

His father replied, "My son, you were always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we should be glad and celebrate. Your brother was dead, but he is now alive. He was lost and has now been found." 

So notice the brother's reaction. Anger, jealousy. And the father begged for him to go in. But the good son refused to celebrate and participate. 

And here's where I think we've got the story backwards. We have always assumed the sinner is the one who will have trouble entering the kingdom. But maybe it's the saint. Maybe the people who will struggle most with heaven are the ones who think that they've already earned it. 

Because imagine standing there seeing the Hitlers and the Trumps, the addicts, the abusers, the doubters, the ones we've written off walking into the feast of God's love and realizing they didn't have to jump through any of my hoops. No doctrinal statement, no sinner's prayer, just open arms and a welcome home. 

And I think some of us are going to say, "Screw this, I'm out." 

And that's not new. Jesus told story after story about people who walked away from grace because it felt unfair. 

There's the great banquet. A man throws a feast, sends out invitations. But the invited, the respectable, the religious, the powerful. They all have excuses. I'm too busy. I'm too tired. I'm too important. So the host says, fine. Go find the poor and the crippled. The blind and the beggars. Bring the riffraff in from the alleys. And when the house fills up with people who smell like the street, he says none of those who were invited will taste my banquet. It's the same pattern, though certain they belong are the ones who don't show up. 

The Samaritan does it to a priest and a Levite. Religious professionals see this bleeding man on the road, and they cross the street to keep their holiness intact. Then a Samaritan, a heretic, an outsider bandages the man and pays his bill. And Jesus says that one, that outsider. That's your neighbor. Every time he flips the table, every time the insiders look like fools and the outsiders look like love. 

So maybe when Jesus says that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven, he's not just talking about money. Maybe Jesus is also talking about spiritual privilege, the wealth of certainty, the comfort of being right. The spiritually rich have the hardest time squeezing through a door made of humility. 

The kingdom doesn't take credentials, just hunger, just a willingness to walk in, even if it means dancing next to the people you swore you'd never touch. 

The first shall be last. The last shall be first. 

We love how that sounds until we're the ones at the back of the line. 

What if heaven's first sight is a party full of people that we've judged unworthy? What if the ones we called lazy, sinful, or wrong are already laughing with God when we arrive? Some will say this isn't heaven if they're here. 

And maybe that's when hell begins: When grace offends us more than sin does. 

See, the older brother stayed home. He obeyed. He never broke the rules. But when Grace breaks his sense of fairness, He walked away, he refused to go in. 

And I wonder if that's who Jesus keeps talking about when he warns the Pharisees when he says the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom before you. It wasn't a threat. I think it was a heartbreak. He was saying, you're invited to, but your pride might not fit through the door. 

Here's what I think. Maybe hell isn't God's revenge. It's the echo chamber of our own resentment. 

It's the porch outside of the party, filled by those who refuse to go in because the sinners are there, where the self-righteous nurse their sense of injustice while the forgiven laugh inside. 

Heaven is the sound of everyone singing off key together. Because nobody earned their spot, because the father's love doesn't do scorekeeping and the door is still open. It's always open. 

So wherever you find yourself, whether you've run far from God or you've stayed close and dutiful your whole life, remember both sons were lost, but only one decided to go in. 

Make sure you're not the one on the porch. 

Join the party. 

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All right. Dude. I wanted to get your immediate reaction.

00:09:02 Jonathan Brink: Uh, you know, what's funny is this is probably one of the most resonant stories, I think, in all of Scripture. This is the rub. Those who can't are shunned by those who can, and those who can miss the point that the older brother is the one who does it right. My sister was the one who did it right, and we had a lot of conflicts about this because I was the wayward child.

00:09:27 Jeromy Johnson: And I was the one who did it right, too.

00:09:28 Jonathan Brink: Yeah. And I think doing it right gives you credence to look down on someone, and I think that's the rub. I think the older brother is the head, and I think the wayward child is the heart, because the heart has to find its own sense of value, and the head is always looking for that perfect logic that says, I did it exactly right.

00:09:50 Jeromy Johnson: You had texted me, I think, and you had shared this thing of like, what if those that are outside of heaven are like the religious? And I'm like, dude, I literally just finished writing a script exactly like that. And that's what triggered us to do this. Maybe this whole heaven in out, forgiveness, whatever is completely backwards. And I feel like when Jesus was on earth, that's what he was trying to tell. And then he tells this, this super powerful story of the brother who just refused to go into the party. He was invited. He was welcomed. The grace was there for him, just like the younger brother. But because the younger brother got that grace, it never does say like he went into the party. I think he never did go into the party. I think that Jesus just left him out there on the porch.

00:10:37 Jonathan Brink: Well, I think from the older brothers perspective, it's like, well, wait a minute. He wasn't a good son.

00:10:42 Jeromy Johnson: No, he wasn't.

00:10:43 Jonathan Brink: He wasn't a good son. That was his whole argument. And I think that's the trick of the parable. You don't have to do good to be good.

00:10:53 Jeromy Johnson: Or believe good.

00:10:55 Jonathan Brink: Or believe. Believing is doing believing. It's like there's a difference between believing. Believing is the effort. Knowing is the reality. And I think the older brother wants the effort but doesn't understand the reality. And I think that's the ultimate rub is religion always invites us to earn salvation because it feels like that's the way it should be.

00:11:15 Jeromy Johnson: But they'll never say that.

00:11:17 Jonathan Brink: Yeah, they'll.

00:11:17 Jeromy Johnson: Never say like, you have to earn salvation. They're just going to say like, but you do have to believe this thing. You have to, you know, it's like there's certain things you have to jump through. And that's what I love. Was he like, did the exact opposite? He didn't jump through any of their hoops.

00:11:29 Jonathan Brink: Yeah. You and I have both worked for and with churches and have participated in churches. And I think that's the hierarchical nature of church, is you figure out what you're supposed to do to be good by doing, you know, like I attend every week, I am on like I remember when I was a kid, people would go to church five to seven times a week. And the more you did. Yeah, better you were, you know, it's like this sense of earning it. That is the fundamental rub of grace is you cannot earn it. You can't.

00:12:03 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. To me, I'm still like, okay, is there a real hell? I don't know, maybe there is. Maybe it's going to be super empty. But I feel like what this is saying is that those who choose not to go in the party because they think that grace is so lavish and unfair. Yeah, maybe they're the ones that will choose separation. Like picture that. Maybe hell, quote unquote is filled with the saints that refuse to go into the party, and they're the ones who would rather be separated than to be with a God who lets these kind of people in.

00:12:35 Jonathan Brink: Yeah, I thought a lot about that question of does hell exist? I don't believe hell exists. I think if you reduce the human being down to energy, we don't ever consciously stop existing. So we're always present. But it's what form, like the human body, is energy slowed down to create mass. So we show up in a period of time, but that sense of consciousness never goes away. People who have I've interviewed for my podcast, we interviewed probably six people that had had near-death experiences, and they all have the same experience. It's this profound sense of well-being after the fact. Once you cross over, it's like, okay, I'm wrong. I'm just clearly wrong. And it's hard to deal with that because we want to come back and live in this world and have a sense of structure. Like, I get the older brother I do. What does it mean to be a good human being? You take care of your family. You do your work. But if that is the structure of your identity and someone else is doing the exact opposite and they're getting rewarded for it, it's like, wait a minute. Yeah, this isn't fair. Like, just tell me what's the right way. But if you tell them the right way, which is know that you're already loved, you can't earn it.

00:13:51 Jeromy Johnson: And I think that's what the father was saying to him. He's like, all that I've ever had was yours. Like you have already been loved. You are already loved. You don't have just like my other son. Like there's there's no earning here. But in his mind, the son is getting what he what he never got. He goes, I can't even get a cow. You know.

00:14:09 Jonathan Brink: Why did you say you were the older son?

00:14:11 Jeromy Johnson: Oh, I was definitely growing up. The one who dotted all my eyes and crossed all my T's and, uh, made sure that that I didn't get in trouble. Um, I was sneaky, so I think I avoided, uh, getting in trouble even when I would do stuff that was kind of stupid, but yeah. No, I was a good kid, right? And even then I went to Bible college. I went into the pastorate, I did all these right things, and I, uh, everyone was so proud of me. For most of my life. I was probably the older child. They're both just kids. Like, they were both lost, and they were both loved. Yeah, and it didn't matter to the dad. I mean, the dad came out begging his son to come in. I've been there. I've been there with my kids right where you're like. And you just want to beg them to come back into relationship with you again, like I'm not even. Is there a hell? Is there not a hell? I don't even think that's the point of this. I think Jesus was just using their language, their understanding, to hopefully try to wake them up, using it against them. Oh, you think that? Well guess what, it's you.

00:15:13 Jonathan Brink: I think hell does exist. Not as a place, but as a state. Yeah, when you hate yourself, that's hell. Like so if you think God hates you. That's hell. You don't need to die and go there to experience it. I don't remember who it was. If it was Charles Spurgeon or one of the great theologians that talked about sticking their hand over the fire and saying, that's what it's going to be like for eternity. The logic of hell doesn't make sense. Like there's so many arguments, why would a God create a why would a loving God create a world that would torture people forever? Logistically, that's not consistent with love. That's my primary argument against the argument of hell. I think if you if you look at hell as a state that you can be in, especially here on earth, it makes total sense. Like people who are suffering, why do we have social justice? Is because people are in hell. People are being murdered. Trafficked. That's hell. But it's present. It's a future state. And I think to a certain extent, both sons experienced hell on earth. They just did it different ways. So for the younger brother, it was to to basically throw his life away to party, but the older son was to reject the love of the father. He didn't even go to the party, you know.

00:16:28 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. So he was experiencing love in that moment. Not when the son was away, not when his brother was away, but when his brother came back and he got all of this generous grace towards him.

00:16:38 Jonathan Brink: Yeah. And I remember when you sent me that text, I was actually thinking, is not the older brother, although it ties really well to the older brother. But it was. Who in heaven do I not want to be there? Because there are people that I refuse to forgive in my life. And what am I doing when I like the older brother? He just wanted nothing to do with his younger brother. It's a really good metaphor. If I transfer that to my own life, who do I not want there? And the journey of following Jesus is about practicing love, even to the enemy. That's what I loved about what Jesus says is he doesn't create this ninety nine percent frame. He creates one hundred percent frame and says even your enemy seven times seventy. It's like there is no exception. And I think I think love is the operating system of the universe. And hell is rejecting that operating system.

00:17:32 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. And the son, the older son, the state that he was in was anger and jealousy. So the father didn't place him in hell. The father didn't create the separation from him. Right? His own anger and jealousy did. And that was that, that hellish state. And, you know, we don't know what happened, right? I am assuming that the older son probably finally came around, but maybe he didn't. Yeah, maybe he then took his inheritance and took off and just had nothing to do with the family. Who knows? Right? But that's what I love. They leave it open ended.

00:18:00 Jonathan Brink: Well, it's also let's take it to the extreme. The clearest examples in history. The ones that I always point to are like Hitler or Pol Pot or Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan killed more people in the history of the world than anybody. What? I want Genghis Khan in heaven with me. And the answer is no, I don't. If I really think about it, why would I want someone who loves? I mean, he was a brutal dictator. Uh, conquered the world. Why would I want someone like that in heaven? But that is the test. The test isn't for the love of God. The test is for me to say, could I see? Because here's the reality. Genghis Khan had the image of God in him. What does conscious look like after we die? It probably looks like complete awareness, like we want to believe that there's good people and evil people. I don't think there are. I think there's good people who are deceived, but there's still good people. But you can have the nth degree, which is someone like Genghis Khan or Hitler. I mean, imagine what their redemption would feel like.

00:19:00 Jeromy Johnson: But we're so removed from them, right? So Genghis Khan, I mean, I don't even know if I'd recognize the guy if I saw him there, but I think our contemporary thing is, you know, that Republican, that you hate, that Democrat that you hate this, the ice person that just came in and took your cousin, the coworker who got the raise and got the promotion that you've been working for your entire time. And then they get it and you're pissed off at them. Yeah, you see them in the heaven. Like sometimes we come across someone that we don't like, even in a grocery store, and we're like, oh God. And we just go down the other aisle just pretending like we never saw them. Maybe that's what heaven, the suffering of heaven's gonna be like. Where? Like we just see all these people that we want to avoid, and then we bring that suffering onto ourselves.

00:19:44 Jonathan Brink: Yeah. And I think also, the older brother has a point about responsibility. One of the rubs that Grace holds is well. And even the older brother gets this is what? What the hell is our responsibility here? Do we want to take care of the farm? Do we want to? I get celebrating, but you haven't done that for me. And I didn't leave and take all your inheritance. It's like, what is the responsibility? So I think grace is always balanced with responsibility. So the older brother has a point. But the answer is grace never goes away. Responsibility never goes away. And it's a both and you need both. But at the end of the day, there is no exception. One of my favorite scenes in all of movies is the the last contemporary Les Mis movie with Hugh Jackman. At the end of the movie is a scene where everybody's on the inside. They're looking out the outside of the the walls that they have created, and there's no one there, meaning everybody has been reconciled. I think that is the most glorious example of what love can do. Because here's the reality. The thing we don't like about grace is the very thing that we need, which is the ability not to exclude me. That's the ultimate line. I want a grace that I can't be excluded from. And that's everybody. Yeah, that means there is no exception.

00:21:12 Jeromy Johnson: Like it has to be everyone.

00:21:13 Jonathan Brink: Yeah, it has to.

00:21:14 Jeromy Johnson: If it's if it's you, it has to be everyone, right? What makes you so unique?

00:21:19 Jonathan Brink: Right? Because everyone is gonna fail. Everyone is gonna make an exception of themselves if they can. That's what I did in my life. I was the prodigal son, I had money, my parents had a lot of money, and I had enough money to basically harm myself and kind of go off the deep end. The prodigal son journey is a discovery of our freedom to the point at which we hurt ourselves. Yeah, yeah, it's I hurt myself. I reached a point where I wanted to kill myself, and I almost did. And thankfully I got rescued from that by some very important people. But the in game of freedom is that will eventually kill you. That's why responsibility is a good balance. The prodigal son came home and I had to come home.

00:22:06 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, here's a thought. It's not even about brothers. It's not even about me and someone that I don't like. They're both in us. I have the prodigal. Yep. I have the older brother. Yep. And maybe what Jesus is getting at is everything about you. Your prodigal ness, your faithfulness, your your willingness to serve me and your your willingness to abandon me. Yep. I am begging both of those to come into my presence. I am wanting both of those to be into my house and to party. And so maybe none of this is about ins and outs. It's just about that dual nature, our ability to say yes and no, to love and to hate, to be responsible and to go out and go wild. God loves it all. Mhm.

00:22:57 Jonathan Brink: Yeah. And that's what started our original conversation is we want to find the group that God doesn't love. You know because I want there to be exception. I don't want to have my enemy or the guy down the street that I don't like. Um, I'll tell you a story. That's funny. There's a guy that lives about one hundred feet from me. And I moved into this neighborhood about five years ago, and he came to my house. Turns out he was a meth addict. I actually found that out last night, believe it or not. And he came to my door and threatened me. I had never met this man in my life. Like, it was a pretty interesting situation and I just kind of I didn't let fear take over. I didn't know that he was a meth addict. I just knew that he was volatile. The next day I saw him and he apologized. I'm like, okay, so maybe he's cool, maybe everything's okay. But I really remember going, this is a real clear potential enemy that I have to watch out for because he is now. I mean, he physically threatened me. He was came from the Marines, had a buzz cut. He looked like he was gonna hurt me. And he had this just wide eyed look in his in his eyes. And I really remember I don't want him in my circle, I don't want him. And he ended up solving himself. He ended up getting off drugs and now he doesn't bother me. Um, and he has no animosity. But for almost a year and a half after that experience, he would eyeball me. He would drive by me, and he would give me a hand gun signal like, I'm gonna hurt you.

00:24:26 Jeromy Johnson: Like, oh, dang.

00:24:27 Jonathan Brink: Yes it was. Yeah. And I really remember, okay, how do I love this person? How do I remain strong? Treat him with respect. Because that's the hard part is loving your enemy is freaking hard. It really is hard. I didn't.

00:24:44 Jeromy Johnson: Want.

00:24:44 Jonathan Brink: This guy and I remember having this conversation for almost a year going, is there an exception? Please give me an exception because I don't want to have to be nice to this guy. Yeah. And the reality is, is that I want out because I maintained a sense of love and grace to the guy, and it took care of itself. Yeah. The value of that experience was that I resolved it amicably. There was no conflict. I didn't treat him like an other. And it was I don't want to toot my own horn. This was probably one of the hardest experiences I've ever had, but I remember really listening to what.

00:25:20 Jeromy Johnson: You were being intentional.

00:25:22 Jonathan Brink: I was, but it was hard. I'm going to be honest with you. I didn't want this guy. Yeah, he lives one hundred feet from me, and I walk my dog by his house every single day. And it didn't. Love ended up winning out. It did?

00:25:35 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. And that's in this imperfect earth. How much more?

00:25:39 Jonathan Brink: Yeah, exactly.

00:25:41 Jeromy Johnson: Well, Jonathan, thank you for taking a moment to just noodle through this. I think, uh, I'd love doing some stuff like this. I love talking with you and with others because it. You know, I have my thoughts and I share those, but I feel like there's so much more gems and beauty that comes out from conversation. Like there's things that that will hit me as I'm talking to you and vice versa, where if we're just thinking about it ourselves, maybe not. So appreciate you doing this.

00:26:05 Jonathan Brink: This is a really good subject for people to wrestle with because it is the perfect story that captures both sides of the coin. There's a lot of people who probably, when I was there, was a point in my life when I really resonated with the older son, and there was a point where I was the younger son. Wrestling with that, I think is a very valuable experience.

00:26:23 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, I.

00:26:24 Jonathan Brink: Agree.

00:26:25 Jeromy Johnson: All right. Dude.

00:26:26 Jonathan Brink: All right brother, take care man.

00:26:29 Jeromy Johnson: You know, after talking with Jonathan, I keep coming back to this. Both sons were lost and both were loved. Heaven and hell weren't places in their future. They were choices in that moment. Whether we are the rule keeper or the runaway. The door is still open. The porch light is still on. And love hasn't stopped calling us home. Our father's begging us to come in. So thanks for being part of this conversation. Remember to walk in grace. And if you can, share that grace.