Regarding confession — why do we do it?

Every week in our services, after we have been called to worship, sung some hymns and songs of praise to God and heard part of God’s Word read, we confess our sins both corporately and individually.

Why do we do that?

Is it because a church service is the only place you can confess and receive forgiveness?

No. There are plenty of reasons we confess our sins, but one that this article wants to highlight.

In the book of Joel, God is trying to awaken people to their sin. He has sent a prophet who is as likeable as smoke alarm, but as necessary as a smoke alarm. Joel has a message that everything is not alright, but change needs to happen soon.

Over and over God tells his people to awaken to their sin, to be aware of it, to be sad over it, to turn from it. But before you can be sad and turn from sin, you need to see it. It needs to strike you and you need to feel its weight and effects.

So why do we read confessions of sin together in our services?

Because often, we need outside voices to awaken us to our sin. Some sin we are aware of, for instance, you know when you have stolen a car. But lots of sin creeps up on us. Sins of greed, jealousy, pride, self-righteousness, lust, envy — all the sins that typically afflict church people, these sins tend to grow up in the dark and quiet.

None of us set out to be jealous, but it is a sin that will kill us all the same.

So we confess our sin so that sin doesn’t sneak up on us. Different confessions lead us to different places of our mind and heart that could use some cleaning and fresh air. Some weeks we confess our pride, other weeks our hatred, other weeks our selfishness.

Some weeks the confession might mean very little to you, but other weeks it hits home in profound ways.

But this is one of the things that lies behind regular confession — a desire to be awake, to be wise to the sneakiness of sin, a desire to root it out of our hearts.