From Religious to Repentance

Mark Estepp - 4/6/2025

Luke 5:27-32

After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, 28 and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.

30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

31 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

From Religious to Repentance 

Religion says, “Look the part.” 

Repentance says, “Be transformed.” 

Shift from proving your righteousness to professing your need for God’s grace.  

Luke 18:9-14

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:

10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.

12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Religion brags. 

Repentance begs. 

Shift from self-sufficiency to God-dependency.  

Religion excludes.

Repentance invites.

Shift from keeping people out to inviting people in.  

Religion says church is for the already perfected. 

Repentance says church is for people in process.  

Shift from “arrived” to “becoming.”  

How do we shift from religion to repentance?

Rethink everything in light of the good news of Jesus.  

Follow Jesus (as a disciple) in a daily process.  

It’s Only Jesus