This is an excerpt from a message “Encounters With Jesus: The Wrong Crowd”, the main text for this message is Luke 5:27-32:

After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

Sinner, Jesus came for you. It's amazing news. But the question is now, okay, you see, you're a sinner. What does Jesus call you to? There is one word that we need to really point out in verse 32. “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” To repentance, not license. Jesus calls sinners to repentance, not license. And if you don't know what that word license means in this term, it's essentially this mindset that says, “Hey, Jesus forgives me for all my sins, so I can go do whatever I want.” That's not what Jesus is calling us to. And I'm afraid that's how a lot of this text has been used before, is to just permit sin and let people go do what they want and say, well, Jesus came for sinners and tax collectors, and so I'm gonna cut loose.

No. Paul was talking to the church in Rome on this very topic: grace in the law. How does this relate? He expects this counterargument in Romans 6. “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin? That grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” He talks about how we're brought into this relationship with Jesus - how baptism is a picture. The old us is dead. The new us is risen, just like Jesus died and rose from the grave. That's what happens when you become a Christian. You're called to repentance.

Repentance - newness of life. The word literally means a change of mind. There is not room for the person who comes as a sinner to just say, “I'm going to come as I am, and I'm going to stay as I am.” That makes no sense. And by the way, why would we want to? Sin is out to kill us. It makes life miserable. It separates us from the God who loves us. Why would we want to stay in sin? The good news of the gospel is that we can come to Jesus as we are, and he loves us too much to leave us there. He calls us to repentance. What a gift.

This is a theme and thread throughout the entire scriptures. This is not just a New Testament concept. When Israel, running from God, turned their back, all in idol worship, they're taken away into Babylonian captivity, and Ezekiel serves as a priest and prophet to them. Here's what he says in Ezekiel 18. “If a wicked person turns turning away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes, begins to obey God, does what is just and right. He shall surely live. He shall not die.” Ezekiel understood repentance.

When Jesus steps on the scene to begin to actually preach and do ministry, in Mark 1, what does he say? “Repent and believe in the gospel.” That's his call. Repent and believe in the gospel. Jesus ascends into heaven. He commissions his disciples, and Peter is preaching at Pentecost, preaches an incredible sermon. Thousands of people are cut to the heart, and they say, “what must we do to be saved?” What does Peter say? “Repent and be baptized. Every single one of you.” This call to repentance.

And as you look at Levi's life in Luke 5, it's very evident that he understood this. Jesus said to him, “Follow me.” And in verse 28, it says, “and leaving everything, he rose and followed him.” Leaving everything, he rose and followed Jesus. What is super interesting is that as you study this text, you come to see that it was a big deal for Peter to leave behind his fishing business last week. But you know what's true of fishermen? When they leave their job, they can always come back to it. If you keep reading the gospel of John, you'll figure out Peter does go back to it. He denies Jesus three times. He's into shame. What's he doing? He's back in the boat.

What Levi does here is nothing short of amazing. He leaves the tax practice, a job he would never get back. He would never be welcomed back to that career. He leaves his wealth, his opportunity to advance behind, because here's what he says: Jesus is better. He sees that Jesus is better, and he leaves everything behind. That's what repentance looks like - turning.

And I love the way that John Calvin has said. “Repentance is not merely the start of the Christian life; it is the Christian life.”

What he's getting at is repentance is not this one-time thing we do at church camp to start a relationship with Jesus. It's something we do every single day, an ongoing practice of turning from our sin and turning towards Jesus.

The Repenter Quadrant

The question I have to ask is, how's it going? How's repentance going? It's part of the Christian life. But I think most of us don't really understand what repentance means or what it really looks like. And so I'd love to put a tool on the screen for you. This is not developed by me. It's been used throughout our network of churches for quite some time. It's called the repenter quadrant.

For those of you who just graduated high school, I promise you, I'm not going math on you, okay? You see axes, and you're freaking out, okay? The vertical axis is what we do with our mouth: Confessing or concealing. The horizontal axis is what we do with our lives: Action or inaction.

The Hider

And I want to start in the bottom left here. The bottom left of this quadrant is the hider. And I would argue if you are in the bottom left quadrant when it comes to your sin, you are not a Christian. That's hard news. But 1 John 3 makes abundantly clear. If the Spirit of God dwells within you, here's what you cannot do. Just keep living on in sin like nothing's happening. That's impossible for someone who has the Spirit of God dwelling within you. You cannot be the hider. But there are hiders in this room, and the call is, stop hiding. But I trust most of us in this room are not there.

The Talker

But we miss in one of these two ditches. The first is The talker. This is the person who is pretty quick to talk about their sin. They see sin in their life, they know it for what it is, and they're confessing to God, maybe even confessing to other people. Imagine with me you've struggled with discontentment before, hypothetically, not that you ever have, but you've struggled with discontentment. You have an overspending or an overeating problem, and you've come before God. And you've said, “God, I am discontent. I know I should be satisfied in you, but I'm not. Please forgive me.” You've gone to your connection group, and you've said, “Hey, guys, I've really struggled with discontentment lately. Will you please pray for me?” But that's all that happens. You say, “Will you please forgive me?” and “Will you please pray for me?” But there's no change in your life. That's not repentance. It's false repentance. It's talking. It's a form of confession with your lips, but it's not showing up in your life. That's one way we miss.

The Fixer

But another way we miss is to become The Fixer. And I know if I did a raise of hands, I'd get a lot of hands raised here, the fixer is the opposite of the talker. You don't want to talk to people about your sin, but you know it's a problem. So you're going to go cancel the Amazon prime account. You know, you're going to put your cash in your envelopes, and you're going to let someone else keep an eye on what you're spending. But you're not willing to talk to God and tell him that it's a contentment problem. You're not willing when it comes around at Connection Group, and people say, “hey, how's it going?” to say, “I've been sinning against God because I've been discontent. I've been chasing the idol of pleasure in my spending.” You won't do it. You won't talk about it.

The Repenter

But James 5:16 says, “if we confess our sins to one another and pray for one another, we will be healed.” It's an invitation to confess to one another. And that's what it looks like to be the repenter. To confess first and foremost to God. “God, I have sinned against you, a holy God. Please change my heart, change my mind, help me to hate my sin and to love you”, to go to your community and to say, “guys, I am struggling. I am struggling with discontentment. And I need somebody to help keep an eye on my finances. I need someone to check in with me and talk to me about my spending habits”, and that they would actually fight for you and fight with you as you seek by the Spirit of God to make changes for the sake of your holiness. That's what repentance looks like, and that's what we are swept up into as members of the family of God, Jesus calls sinners to repentance.