Confess Your Sin Regularly

Could you say that your life is marked by a regular habit of confessing your

sin? Outside of this particular time during our weekly service, how often do

you take time to confess your sin before the Lord?

To neglect regularly confessing sin before the Lord functionally preaches “I

have no sin to confess.”

But really, we know that though we are redeemed, we are still marred by

sin. We have to daily fight to kill the sin in our lives. And one of the

weapons we have to kill sin is through our confession of it.

Confession of sin is intended to be our expression of our sorrow over sin,

but far too often we can treat it as our response to the sorrow we feel over

the consequences of our sin. Meaning we lament the effects of our sin

more than we do the sin itself. Or we confess our sin to the Lord in attempts to feel better.

Even more dangerously we can treat confession of sin as the atonement

for our sin. Confession of sin becomes nothing more than an act we do to

wipe away our sin.

When we confess our sin before the Lord, we are affirming the truth of

God’s Word, we humbly show that we agree with the God that what we

have thought, believed, said, or done is wrong and is not only against His

commands but has been an act against God Himself.

As we confess sin, we are declaring to ourselves and to God our desperate

need of Him by going to Him. We are putting on display His glory by

declaring His righteousness. That is David’s point in Psalm 51:4: “Against

You, You only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that You

are justified when You speak and blameless when you judge.”

We have this moment for confession of sin each week in our service to

remind us that it is needed every other day of the week.

As our worship service opens, we are confronted with the holiness of God

and then our Word of Exhortation bridges the gap between our awe of the

glory of God and the confession of our sin. Through it we lay out what God

calls us to do so that we can confess to God what we have failed to do, so

we can receive mercy because of what Christ has done. 

As we confess our sin we acknowledge our unholiness. We own up to who

we really are. We no longer pretend to be something we aren’t. And this

gives us the opportunity to see God for who He is. As we confess to the

Lord we should taste the bitterness of sin and the sweetness of Christ.

Regularly confessing our sin constantly keep in view our depravity and

Christ’s righteousness. It is critical that these be contrasted so that we see

the Savior in all his glory.

The habit of confessing sin should not be a rarity in the church. Instead, it

should be a key marker of those who have been truly redeemed.

Church don’t neglect your responsibility and privilege to regularly confess

your sin to your gracious God and recognize it as a means of grace to your

soul that illuminates the beauty of Jesus and dims the glimmer of your sin.