Why do we confess?

I am no theologian (I leave that up to my dad, my wife, and my brother), but I did enjoy the sermon I heard yesterday. Morgan and I were in Birmingham this weekend to help host a wedding shower for a good friend of mine. We, of course, stayed with my parents and went to church with them on Sunday morning at South Highland Presbyterian Church. SHPC had a guest speaker named Wil Willimon who is apparently a well respected theologian.

Anyways, he preached about why we confess our sins. He referred to some churches who preach how 'good' people are and that their services are full of reminders of how 'good' the church goers are and the service is meant to build them up and make them feel all warm and fuzzy inside. He then wondered why Presbyterians (and many other reformed churches) start out our service with such a downer like openly confessing that we are sinners. He said that that type of openly admitting that we are not good is not part of our human nature. That we as humans always want to appear confident and in control and not focus on the bad things that we do, but to instead to focus on the good things that we do. So, why is it that we always confess our sins and admit how bad we have been.

As I said, I am no theologian, so I am sure that I cannot relay his sentiments exactly, but the jist of his sermon was that we admit our sins because we are sinners. We have been sinners "since Genesis, Chapter 3" as he said. But that the good news is that despite our sins, God still loves us and forgives us. God sent Jesus to be with the un-Godly and to save us. So, we confess our sins so that we can humbly go before God as sinners and then accept the divine Grace of Jesus Christ as our Saviour.

I am not good at putting these things together or always getting the exact right point, but I do believe that what he was preaching is exactly what I believe. I KNOW that I am a sinner and I KNOW that because of God's grace and through the love of Jesus Christ, that I am saved.

Thanks be to God!!!!!